established in the Elizabethan Age.
The England of Elizabeth, of Shakespeare, of Drake and the sea-dogs,
is seldom thought of as the cradle of the science of electricity.
Nevertheless, it was; just as surely as it was the birthplace of the
Shakespearian drama, of the Authorized Version of the Bible, or of
that maritime adventure and colonial enterprise which finally grew and
blossomed into the United States of America.

The accredited father of the science of electricity and magnetism is
William Gilbert, who was a physician and man of learning at the court of
Elizabeth. Prior to him, all that was known of these phenomena was what
the ancients knew, that the lodestone possessed magnetic properties and
that amber and jet, when rubbed, would attract bits of paper or other
substances of small specific gravity. Gilbert's great treatise "On
the Magnet", printed in Latin in 1600, containing the fruits of his
researches and experiments for many years, indeed provided the basis for
a new science.

On foundations well and truly laid by Gilbert several Europeans, like
Otto von Guericke of Germany, Du Fay of France, and Stephen Gray of
England, worked before Benjamin Franklin and added to the structure
of electrical knowledge. The Leyden jar, in which the mysterious force
could be stored, was invented in Holland in 1745 and in Germany almost
simultaneously.

Franklin's important discoveries are outlined in the first chapter of
this book. He found out, as we have seen, that electricity and lightning
are one and the same, and in the lightning rod he made the first
practical application of electricity. Afterwards Cavendish of England,
Coulomb of France, Galvani of Italy, all brought new bricks to the
pile. Following them came a group of master builders, among whom may be
mentioned: Volta of Italy, Oersted of Denmark, Ampere of France, Ohm of
Germany, Faraday of England, and Joseph Henry of America.

Among these men, who were, it should be noted, theoretical
investigators, rather than practical inventors like Morse, or Bell, or
Edison, the American Joseph Henry ranks high. Henry was born at Albany
in 1799 and was educated at the Albany Academy. Intending to practice
medicine, he studied the natural sciences. He was poor and earned his
daily bread by private tutoring. He was an industrious and brilliant
student and soon gave evidence of being endowed with a powerful mind.
He was appointed in 1824 an assistant engineer for the survey