The eel is restless in his muddy bed—the horse trembles beneath his rider—the cattle gather lowing to a covert—the eagle nestles in the cleft of the rock with folded wings—the hart looks wild and anxious: only the poor seal seems to experience agreeable sensations, for he will come out of his hiding-place in the deep, at the call of the thunder, and repose upon some overhanging ledge, as if calmly enjoying the convulsion of the elements. Since the month of June 1752, when Franklin performed the celebrated kite experiment, by which he became the modern Prometheus, bringing down the celestial fire to the earth, the identity of lightning and electricity has been universally known. The theory of the electric fluid, as it is called, is to be sought for in philosophical treatises, our province being to notice its distribution, phenomena, and effects. That subtle principle which the Greeks denominated electricity, from _elektron_, amber, because the property was first noticed in that substance, appears to be a universally diffused agent, its presence having been detected in connection with the clouds, with hail, rain and snow, with vegetation, animals, and the interior strata of the earth. But undue accumulation transpires—the electrical equilibrium is disturbed; and the resulting phenomena of equalization are lightning and thunder. Thus two clouds, or a cloud and the earth, unequally electrified, tend to return to a condition of equality through a conducting medium, a metallic or moist body having the preference as a conductor, the discharge of electricity appearing in the form of a spark or flash, accompanied by a loud detonation according to its violence, the peal rebounding in echoes from cloud to cloud, and from hill to hill. Some regions of the globe are peculiarly subject to accumulations of electricity. Mr. Hamilton, in his work on Asia Minor, observes—“One of the most remarkable phenomena which I observed in Angora, was the great degree of electricity which seemed to pervade every thing. I observed it particularly in silk handkerchiefs, linen and woollen stuffs. At times, when I went to bed in the dark, the sparks which were emitted from the blanket gave it the appearance of a sheet of fire; when I took up a silk handkerchief, the crackling noise would resemble that of breaking a handful of dried leaves or grass; and on one or two occasions I clearly felt my hands and fingers tingle from the electric fluid. I could only attribute it to the extreme dryness of the atmosphere, and momentary friction. I did not observe that it was at all influenced by wind; the phenomena were the same, whether by night or by day, in wind or calm. Not a cloud was visible during the whole of my stay.”