Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/123

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there was a learned Italian named Galvani. He had an electrical machine and he was showing his pupils what electricity was. He rubbed glass vigorously with oiled silk, and then he approached to the glass a copper knob with a glass handle, and instantly a spark leaped from the glass to the copper knob. He told them that a similar spark would be elicited by sealing-wax and amber. He showed how feathers and pieces of paper are sometimes attracted by electricity, sometimes repelled, and why this is. He performed many different experiments with electricity and showed them to his pupils.

Once it happened that his wife was taken ill. He summoned the doctor and asked him how to cure her. The doctor ordered him to have made for her a frog soup. Galvani sent out to get some edible frogs. They were caught, killed, and laid on the table.

The cook did not come to get the frogs, and Galvani went on to show his pupils his experiment with the electrical machine, and produced sparks. Suddenly he noticed that the dead frogs lying on the table moved their legs. He began to study them and discovered that each time he elicited a spark from the electrical machine the frogs kicked.

Galvani procured some more frogs and began a series of experiments. Each time it proved that whenever he produced a spark the dead frogs acted as if they were alive. And so it occurred to Galvani that living frogs might move their legs from this cause, that electricity might pass through them.

But Galvani knew that electricity is in the atmosphere; that while it is more noticeable in sealing-wax, amber, and glass, still it is in the air, and that thunder and lightning are produced by atmospheric electricity.

So he began to make experiments whether dead frogs would move their legs under the influence of