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and fantastic hypotheses, though it may be doubted whether our modern scientific discoveries in connection with electricity are not more astonishing than any of the magical explanations of savages. The Greeks knew that amber (Greek, electron) when rubbed would attract light and dry bodies. In 1600 a.d., Dr. Gilbert, of Colchester, published the first work on the subject in which any scientific method is followed. He made a list of substances possessing properties similar to those of amber; he must also have the credit of connecting, however vaguely, electric and magnetic phenomena. At the end of the seventeenth and throughout the eighteenth century knowledge advanced. Electrical machines were made, sparks were obtained from them; and the Leyden Jar was in vented, by which these effects could be intensified. Some organized knowledge was being obtained; but still no relevent mathematical ideas had been found out. Franklin, in the year 1752, sent a kite into the clouds and proved that thunderstorms were electrical.

Meanwhile from the earliest epoch (2634 b.c.) the Chinese had utilized the characteristic property of the compass needle, but do not seem to have connected it with any theoretical ideas. The really profound changes in human life all have their ultimate origin in knowledge

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