Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/87

Rh issue from his pedal extremity, and again the "poor white trash" of the waste-basket joined issue with the stocking. He was in a condition of excellent health and spirits that morning, and in a mood for experimenting: he removed his remaining boot, and secured a similar result with the other foot; when, congratulating himself on the fact that he seemed to be a very attractive person, he returned to his work.

An incident of this kind, though more startling in its outcome, is related as occurring in the same city more than eighty years ago, in a letter of a United States Senator, Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell. The letter is dated at Washington, March 17, 1802. He says: "A very singular occurrence has happened to General Dayton, of Elizabethstown, one of the New Jersey Senators. He pulled off his stockings of silk, under which were another pair of woolen gauze, just as he was going to bed. The former were dropped on the small carpet by the bedside, and the latter were thrown to some distance near its foot. Electrical snaps and sparks were observed by him to be unusually prevalent when he took off his stockings. He slept until morning, when the silk stockings were found to be converted to coal, having the semblance of sticks and threads, but falling to pieces on being touched. There was not the least cohesion. One of the slippers, which lay under the stockings, was considerably burned. One of the woolen garters was also burned in pieces the carpet was burned through to the floor, and the floor itself was scorched to charcoal. It was a case of spontaneous combustion the candle having been carefully put out, and there being very little fire on the hearth, and both of them being eight feet or more from the stockings."

Dr. R. D. Mussey, Professor of Surgery in Dartmouth College, in the "American Journal of Medical Sciences" for January, 1838, gives an account of a Mrs. B, a married lady about thirty years of age, residing in Grafton County, New Hampshire, who gave out sparks and snaps continuously for some thirteen weeks, when this power was entirely lost and did not return again. The discovery of this faculty was a great surprise to the lady, and subsequently caused her some annoyance. Though Mrs. B wore a silk dress at the time of the commencement of the phenomenon, this was exchanged for cotton and flannel successively without affecting the result; and the manifestations were found to be due to the lady's own person, and not to the clothing or other conditions. Dr. Mussey's account is supported also by Dr. W. Hosford, the lady's family physician.

Phenomena of this sort, when manifested, do not seem to be confined to any one portion of the human body, though occasionally localized. A Capuchin friar is mentioned by Dr. Schneider, whose scalp was a veritable reservoir of electricity. Whenever