t "of being able to bring thunder and
lightning to market at a much cheaper price than common gunpowder,"
and describes a friend who has applied himself wholly to electrical
experiments, and discovered that "the most effectual and easy method
of making this commodity is by grinding a certain quantity of air
between a glass ball and a bag of sand, and when you have ground it
into fire your lightning is made, and then you may either bottle it
up, or put it into casks properly seasoned for that purpose, and send
it to market." The inventor, however, confesses that what he has
hitherto made is not of a sufficient degree of strength to answer all
the purposes of natural lightning; but he is confident that he will
soon be able to effect this, and has, indeed, already so far perfected
his experiments that, in the presence of several of his neighbours, he
has succeeded in producing a clap of thunder which blew out a candle,
accompanied by a flash of lightning which made an impression upon a
pat of butter standing upon the table. He is also confident that in
warm weather he can shake all the pewters upon his shelf, and fully
expects, when his thermometer is at sixty-two degrees and a half, to
be able to sour all the small beer in his cellar, and to break his
largest pier-glass. This paper in "The World," apart from its humorous
intention, is curious as a record of early dabblings in electrical
experiments. It may be mentioned that in one of Franklin's letters,
written apparently before the year 1750, the points of resemblance
between lightning and the spark obtained by friction from an
electrical apparatus are distinctly stated. It is but some thirty-five
years ago that Andrew Crosse, the famous amateur electrician, was
asked by an elderly gentleman, who came to witness his experiments
with two enormous Leyden jars charged by means of wires stretched for
miles among the forest trees near Taunton: "Mr. Crosse, don't you
think it is rather impious to bottle the lightning?"

"Let me answer your question by asking another," said Crosse,
laughing. "Don't you think it might be considered rather impious to
bottle the rain-water?"

Further, it may be remembered that curious reference to this part of
our subject is made by "the gentleman in the small clothes" who lived
next door to Mrs. Nickleby, and presumed to descend the chimney of her
house. "Very good," he is reported to have said on that occasion,
"then bring in the bottled light