lly concerned in acts of
intellection executed by the brain, it may be expired in the breath.
Though shed in the tear in moments of despair, it may give birth to the
rainbow, the emblem of hope. Whatever the course through which it has
passed, whatever mutations it has undergone, whatever the force it has
submitted to, its elementary constituents endure. Not only have they not
been annihilated, they have not even been changed; and in a period of
time, long or short, they find their way as water back again to the sea
from which they came.

[Sidenote: Electrical discoveries.] Discoveries in electricity not only
made a profound impression on chemistry, they have taken no
insignificant share in modifying human opinion on other very interesting
subjects. In all ages the lightning had been looked upon with
superstitious dread. The thunderbolt had long been feigned to be the
especial weapon of Divinity. A like superstitious sentiment had
prevailed respecting the northern lights universally regarded in those
countries in which they display themselves as glimpses of the movements
of the angelic host, the banners and weapons of the armies of heaven. A
great blow against superstition was struck when the physical nature of
these phenomena was determined. As to the connexion of electrical
science with the progress of civilization, what more needs to be said
than to allude to the telegraph?

[Sidenote: Theories of electricity.] It is an illustration of the
excellence and fertility of modern methods that the phenomena of the
attraction displayed by amber, which had been known and neglected for
two thousand years, in one-tenth of that time led to surprising results.
[Sidenote: Electrical phenomena.] First it was shown that there are many
other bodies which will act in like manner; then came the invention of
the electrical machine, the discovery of electrical repulsion, and the
spark; the differences of conductibility in bodies; the apparently two
species of electricity, vitreous and resinous; the general law of
attraction and repulsion; the wonderful phenomena of the Leyden phial
and the electric shock; the demonstration of the identity of lightning
and electricity; the means of protecting buildings and ships by rods;
the velocity of electric movement--that immense distances can be passed
through in an inappreciable time; the theory of one fluid and that of
two; the mathematical discussion of all the phenomena, first on one and
then