Bibliographical history of electricity & magnetism, chronologically arranged
History
Bibliographical history of electricity & magnetism, chronologically arranged
Electricity -- History; Electricity -- History -- Bibliography; Magnetism -- History; Magnetism -- History -- Bibliography; Science, Medieval
REFERENCES.--_Comptes Rendus_, Vol. XIX. p. 365; “Am. Journal
Sc. and Arts,” 1841, XL. p. 248; Davis, “The Chinese,” 1844,
Vol. III. p. 13; Becquerel, “Elec. et Mag.,” p. 58; Klaproth,
“Boussole,” pp. 67–69, 95; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1849, Vol. II. p.
656, and Vol. V. p. 52; Knight, “Mech. Dict.,” Vol. II. p. 1397;
Humboldt, “Examen Critique,” Paris, 1836, Vol. III. p 34.
=A.D. 1160.=--Eustathius, Archbishop of Thessalonica, relates in his
commentary on the Iliad of Homer, that Walimer, father of Theodoric
and King of the Goths, used to emit sparks from his body; also that a
certain philosopher observed sparks occasionally issuing from his chest
accompanied with a crackling noise.
Leithead tells us that streams of fire came from the hair of Servius
Tullius, a Roman King, during sleep, when he was about seven years
of age (Dionysius, “Antiq. Rom.” lib. iv.; Pliny, “Hist. Nat.” lib.
ii. cap. 37); that Cardan alludes to the hair of a certain Carmelite
monk emitting sparks whenever it was rubbed backward (“De Rerum
Varietate,” lib. viii. cap. 43); that Father Faber, in his “Palladium
Chemicum,” speaks of a young woman whose hair emitted sparks while
being combed, and also refers to allusions made in the same line by
Thomas Bartholinus, “De Luce Animalium,” Lugd. 1647, p. 121; Ezekiel
di Castro, “De Igne Lambente”; Johann Jacob Hemmer, “Trans. Elec. Soc.
Mannheim,” Vol. VI; and _Phil. Trans._, Vol. V. pp. 1, 40.
REFERENCES.--Eustath in Iliad, E. p. 515, ed. Rom.; “Encycl.
Brit.,” 1855, VIII. p. 571; Priestley, “History of Electricity,”
London, 1775, pp. 128, 129; _Phil. Trans._, abridged, Vol. X.
pp. 278, 343, 344, 357.
=A.D. 1190–1210.=--Guyot de Provins, minstrel at the Court of the
Emperor Frederick I (Barbarossa), gives the first French mention of the
water compass in a manuscript “politico-satirical” poem entitled “La
Bible,” to be found in the Bibliothèque Nationale. It is therein said
that sailors were at that time in the habit of rubbing needles upon the
ugly brown stone called _marinière_, “to which iron adheres of its
own accord,” and that, as soon as placed afloat upon a small piece of
straw in the water, the needles would point to the North. The passage
alluding to the compass has been copied by D. A. Azuni, member of the
Turin Academy of Sciences, from the original manuscript, and is given
entire, with the French translation, at p. 137 of his “Dissertation
...” second edition, Paris, 1809:
“De notre père l’apostoile (le pape)
* * * * *
Ils l’appellent la tresmontaigne
* * * * *
Par la vertu de la marinière,
Une pierre laide et brumière,
Ou li fers volontiers se joint....”
The passage is also given by Klaproth, at pp. 41–43, and by Venanson,
at p. 72, of their respective works already cited; likewise by
Bertelli, p. 59 of his Memoir published in 1868.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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