Greek and Roman mythology contains many references to thunder and lightning. For instance, we read about the great god Zeus, who wielded thunder-bolts which had been forged in underground furnaces by the giant Cyclops. There was no doubt that the thunder-bolts were made in this way, because one only had to visit a volcano in order to see the smoke from the furnace, and hear the rumbling echo of the far-off hammering. Then we are told the tragic story of Phaeton, son of the Sun-god. This youth, like many others since his time, was daring and venturesome, and imagined that he could do things quite as well as his father. On one occasion he tried to drive his father’s chariot, and, as might have been expected, it got beyond his control, and came dangerously near the Earth. The land was scorched, the oceans were dried up, and the whole Earth was threatened with utter destruction. In order to prevent such a frightful catastrophe, Jupiter, the mighty lord of the heavens, hurled a thunder-bolt at Phaeton, and struck him from the chariot into the river Po. A whole book could be written about these ancient legends concerning the thunderstorm, but, interesting as they are, they have no scientific value, and many centuries were to elapse before the real nature of lightning was understood. In order to trace the first glimmerings of electrical knowledge we must leave the thunderstorm and pass on to more trivial matters. On certain sea-coasts the ancients found a transparent yellow substance capable of taking a high polish, and much to be desired as an ornament; and about 600 years B.C. it was discovered that this substance, when rubbed, gained the power of drawing to it bits of straw, feathers, and other light bodies. This discovery is generally credited to a Greek philosopher named Thales, 941–563 B.C., and it must be regarded as the first step towards the foundation of electrical science. The yellow substance was amber. We now know it to be simply a sort of fossilized resin, but the Greeks gave it a much more romantic origin. When Phaeton’s rashness brought him to an untimely end, his sorrowing sisters, the Heliades, were changed into poplar trees, and their tears into amber. Amongst the names given to the Sun-god was Alector, which means the shining one, and so the tears of the Heliades came to have the name Electron, or the shining thing. Unlike most of the old legends, this story of the fate of the Sun-maidens is of great importance to us, for from the word “electron” we get the name Electricity.