In the year 1742, Desaguliers received the prize of the _Académie Royale de Bordeaux_ for a treatise on the electricity of bodies, which latter was separately published at the time in a quarto volume of twenty-eight pages. The same Academy had previously conferred important prizes for dissertations, upon the nature of thunder and lightning by Louis Antoine Lozeran du Fech in 1726, upon the variations of the magnetic needle by Nicolas Sarrabat in 1727, and also subsequently decreed similar awards, to Laurent Béraud for an essay on magnets in 1748, to Denis Barberet for a treatise on atmospherical electricity in 1750, and to Samuel Theodor Quellmalz for a dissertation on medical electricity in 1753. REFERENCES.--_Phil. Trans._, Vol. XL. p. 385; Vol. XLII. pp. 14, 140; also the following abridgments: Hutton, Vol. VIII. pp. 246–248, 340, 346, 350–358, 470–474, 479, 546, 584; John Martyn, Vol. VIII. part ii. pp. 419, 422–444, 740. Very interesting reading is afforded by M. Desaguliers through the observations he made on the magnets having more poles than two. These will be found recorded in _Phil. Trans._ for 1738, p. 383 and in Hutton’s abridgments, Vol. VIII. p. 246; Thomson, “Hist. Roy. Soc.,” 1812, pp. 433, 434; “Gen. Biog. Dict.,” Alex. Chalmers, London, 1811, Vol. XI. pp. 489–493. =A.D. 1740.=--Celsius (Anders), who filled the chair of astronomy at Upsal, is first to point out the great utility of making simultaneous observations over a large extent of territory and at widely different points. He states (_Svenska Vetenskaps Academiens Handlingar_ for 1740, p. 44) that a simultaneity in certain extraordinary perturbations, which had caused a horary influence on the course of the magnetic needle at Upsal and at London, afforded proof “that the cause of these disturbances is extended over considerable portions of the earth’s surface, and is not dependent upon accidental local actions.” In the following year (1741), Olav Hiörter, who was Celsius’ assistant, discovered and measured the influence of polar light on magnetic variation. His observations were subsequently carried on in conjunction with Celsius, and were improved upon by Wargentin (A.D. 1750) and by Cassini (A.D. 1782–1791). REFERENCES.--Walker, “Ter. and Cos. Magnetism,” p. 116; also Humboldt, “Cosmos,” _re_ “Magnetic Disturbances,” and Vol. II. p. 438, of Weld’s “History of the Royal Society.” =A.D. 1742.=--Gordon (Andreas), a Scotch Benedictine monk (1712–1757), Professor of Philosophy at Erfurt, abandons the use of glass globes (Newton, at A.D. 1675 and Hauksbee, at A.D. 1705), and is the first to employ a glass cylinder, the better to develop electricity. His cylinder, eight inches long and four inches wide, is made to turn by means of a bow with such rapidity that it attains 680 revolutions per minute.