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 electricity is discussed in, and these manifestations in nature in ; and. The general principles of electrical engineering will be found in, and further details respecting the generation and use of electrical power are given in such articles as ; ; ; ; : Electric; ; : Electric; and. The principles of telegraphy (land, submarine and wireless) and of telephony are discussed in the articles and, and various electrical instruments are treated in separate articles such as ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; &c.

The term “electricity” is applied to denote the physical agency which exhibits itself by effects of attraction and repulsion when particular substances are rubbed or heated, also in certain chemical and physiological actions and in connexion with moving magnets and metallic circuits. The name is derived from the word electrica, first used by William Gilbert (1544–1603) in his epoch-making treatise De magnete, magneticisque corporibus, et de magno magnete tellure, published in 1600, to denote substances which possess a similar property to amber (= electrum, from  ) of attracting light objects when rubbed. Hence the phenomena came to be collectively called electrical, a term first used by William Barlowe, archdeacon of Salisbury, in 1618, and the study of them, electrical science.

Historical Sketch.

Gilbert was the first to conduct systematic scientific experiments on electrical phenomena. Prior to his date the scanty knowledge possessed by the ancients and enjoyed in the middle ages began and ended with facts said to have been familiar to Thales of Miletus (600 ) and mentioned by Theophrastus (321 ) and Pliny ( 70), namely, that amber, jet and one or two other substances possessed the power, when rubbed, of attracting fragments of straw, leaves or feathers. Starting with careful and accurate observations on facts concerning the mysterious properties of amber and the lodestone, Gilbert laid the foundations of modern electric and magnetic science on the true experimental and inductive basis. The subsequent history of electricity may be divided into four well-marked periods. The first extends from the date of publication of Gilbert’s great treatise in 1600 to the invention by Volta of the voltaic pile and the first production of the electric current in 1799. The second dates from Volta’s discovery to the discovery by Faraday in 1831 of the induction of electric currents and the creation of currents by the motion of conductors in magnetic fields, which initiated the era of modern electrotechnics. The third covers the period between 1831 and Clerk Maxwell’s enunciation of the electromagnetic theory of light in 1865 and the invention of the self-exciting dynamo, which marks another great epoch in the development of the subject; and the fourth comprises the modern development of electric theory and of absolute quantitative measurements, and above all, of the applications of this knowledge in electrical engineering. We shall sketch briefly the historical progress during these various stages, and also the growth of electrical theories of electricity during that time.

—Gilbert was probably led to study the phenomena of the attraction of iron by the lodestone in consequence of his conversion to the Copernican theory of the earth’s motion, and thence proceeded to study the attractions produced by amber. An account of his electrical discoveries is given in the De magnete, lib. ii. cap. 2. He invented the versorium or electrical needle and proved that innumerable bodies he called electrica, when rubbed, can attract the needle of the versorium (see ). Robert Boyle added many new facts and gave an account of them in his book, The Origin of Electricity. He showed that the attraction between the rubbed body and the test object is mutual. Otto von Guericke (1602–1686) constructed the first electrical machine with a revolving ball of sulphur (see ), and noticed that light objects were repelled after being attracted by excited electrics. Sir Isaac Newton substituted a ball of glass for sulphur in the electrical machine and made other not unimportant additions to electrical knowledge. Francis Hawksbee (d. 1713) published in his book Physico-Mechanical Experiments (1709), and in several Memoirs in the ''Phil. Trans.'' about 1707, the results of his electrical inquiries. He showed that light was produced when mercury was shaken up in a glass tube exhausted of its air. Dr Wall observed the spark and crackling sound when warm amber was rubbed, and compared them with thunder and lightning (Phil. Trans., 1708, 26, p. 69). Stephen Gray (1696–1736) noticed in 1720 that electricity could be excited by the friction of hair, silk, wool, paper and other bodies. In 1729 Gray made the important discovery that some bodies were conductors and others non-conductors of electricity. In conjunction with his friend Granville Wheeler (d. 1770), he conveyed the electricity from rubbed glass, a distance of 886 ft., along a string supported on silk threads (Phil. Trans., 1735–1736, 39, pp. 16, 166 and 400). Jean Théophile Desaguliers (1683–1744) announced soon after that electrics were non-conductors, and conductors were non-electrics. C. F. de C. du Fay (1699–1739) made the great discovery that electricity is of two kinds, vitreous and resinous (Phil. Trans., 1733, 38, p. 263), the first being produced when glass, crystal, &c. are rubbed with silk, and the second when resin, amber, silk or paper, &c. are excited by friction with flannel. He also discovered that a body charged with positive or negative electricity repels a body free to move when the latter is charged with electricity of like sign, but attracts it if it is charged with electricity of opposite sign, i.e. positive repels positive and negative repels negative, but positive attracts negative. It is to du Fay also that we owe the abolition of the distinction between electrics and non-electrics. He showed that all substances could be electrified by friction, but that to electrify conductors they must be insulated or supported on non-conductors. Various improvements were made in the electrical machine, and thereby experimentalists were provided with the means of generating strong electrification; C. F. Ludolff (1707–1763) of Berlin in 1744 succeeded in igniting ether with the electric spark (Phil. Trans., 1744, 43, p. 167).

For a very full list of the papers and works of these early electrical philosophers, the reader is referred to the bibliography on Electricity in Dr Thomas Young’s Natural Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 415.

In 1745 the important invention of the Leyden jar or condenser was made by E. G. von Kleist of Kammin, and almost simultaneously by Cunaeus and Pieter van Musschenbroek (1692–1761) of Leiden (see ). Sir William Watson (1715–1787) in England first observed the flash of light when a Leyden jar is discharged, and he and Dr John Bevis (1695–1771) suggested coating the jar inside and outside with tinfoil. Watson carried out elaborate experiments to discover how far the electric discharge of the jar could be conveyed along metallic wires and was able to accomplish it for a distance of 2 m., making the important observation that the electricity appeared to be transmitted instantaneously.

Franklin’s Researches.—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) was one of the great pioneers of electrical science, and made the ever-memorable experimental identification of lightning and electric spark. He argued that electricity is not created by friction, but merely collected from its state of diffusion through other matter by which it is attracted. He asserted that the glass globe, when rubbed, attracted the electrical fire, and took it from the rubber, the same globe being disposed, when the friction ceases, to give out its electricity to any body which has less. In the case of the charged Leyden jar, he asserted that the inner coating of tinfoil