BOOKS.
MEHORIA.LS OF ANDREW CROSSE THE ELECTRICIAN.* IT is just twenty-one years since the British Association and the world at large were startled by a statement, that a man unknown to public fame had not only succeeded in producing known combinations of existing substances (which no chemists had yet accomplished) by means of electricity, but some combinations novel even to chemists. Shortly afterwards, it was announced that the same person had produced an unknown species of insect life by electrical experiments, or at all events insect life had been produced in positions that would have been destructive to life or the germs of life if placed there accidentally. The inference was obvious. Electricity could not only endow matter with forms, and apparently properties, but even produce life. Hence, the eternity of matter being assumed, we had in electricity an efficient cause of creation ; and as the elder Herschel saw the elements of the universe in the nebular embryo, and La Place demonstrated how the solar system was formed, by a wonderful calculation, (even though the nebular hypothesis should turn out to be altogether erroneous,) so in Andrew Crosse we had the discoverer of the "anima niundi."
Not much if anything has come of it. There might have been accident or rather error ; but that Crosse did not make the systematic discoveries in electricity which an extraordinary apparatus, great activity, zeal, and industry, with considerable genius for the task, and the labours of more than half a century, would seem to promise, is to be ascribed to a deficiency of character. It is not mere ability or capability that suffices for success in anything. Even poetical, oratorical, or artistical genius, is perhaps more widely distributed than is generally supposed. Excepting absolutely lazy people, there is not probably so much difference in the industry of men as might be imagined. One person will work as much and almost as hard as another without anything of consequence to show for it at last ; because the labour which attains great excellence is steadily directed and sustained to a distinct end, each step being not only an advance itself, but a means of making further advances till the goal is reached, whereas the bulk of men, even engaged in what may be termed mental labour, work in a desultory way, or confine themselves to small and limited tasks. According to Mrs. Crosse, her husband foresaw and predicted the electric telegraph so long ago as 1816; but he seems never to have made any attempt to realize his idea, though the isolated situation of his house close by the Quantock Hills in Somersetshire, and his gigantic apparatus, with its wires spreading over his grounds, were admirably adapted for the necessary experiments. His first discoveries as to the possibility of producing old or forming new substances by electricity seem to have been made fourteen or fifteen years before they were announced at the meeting of 1836; but they do not appear to have been systematically pursued ; still less did he appear to have attempted to investigate the laws on which the facts depended. He made some curious and apparently convincing experiments, tending to show the important influence of electricity on the improvement of wine and on the growth of vegetation ; he tried an experiment by which impressions of coins could be produced on marble ; plaster casts he hardened to marble by electricity ; he carried on some experiments to show the power of electricity over metals, and. its utility (if it could be cheaply managed) in separating the metal from the ore. But he more or less stopped with his first experiments, not pursuing them to complete results, still less endeavouring to ,discover the principles on which they rested. There is nothing censurable in this, unless it be that censure which is contained in the parable of the talent; but completeness in science is equivalent to perfection in poetry or the arts. Many an form plans, many begin them ; completion is the difficulty. The position of Mr. Crosse may appear to have had, something to do with his imperfect if not desultory labours. His family was ancient, his income from landed property sufficient if not ample for the life of a country gentleman ; and his personal habits appear to have been simple enough ; but he lived all his life in pecuniary difficulties. The story as told by Mrs. Crosse is the usual one. "He had no business habits, and was wanting altogether in common prudence ; he implicitly trusted, without discrimination, all those around' him. Of course he soon became a dupe to the dishonesty ,of some, and a victim of his own and others' mismanagement.' He would perhaps have done better had he put himself into the hands of some one respectable agent ; but he did what Chesterfield says never answers, he became his own steward. He repaired and rebuilt farm-houses and their offices, cut down and planted timber, made improvements, and engaged in all the operations of an agriculturist and a "manager," without understanding what he was about. Besides these home details and pecuniary entanglements, he mixed somewhat in county business and polities, and wrote verses, (which, however, Davy and others had done before him.) For a good many years he was also harassed by domestic afflictions in the shape of deaths of children together with the failing health and final decease of his first wife and a much-loved brother. These things, no doubt, must have interrupted and distracted his scientific pursuits ; but had there existed the natural disposition to carry a subject to its determined end, they would scarcely have prevented the &comapliehment.
Memorials, Scientific and Literary, of Andrew Creme, the Electrician. Published by Longman and Co.
Although succinctly presenting the events of Crease's life, the volume before us is less a regular biography (which, indeed, it does not pretend to be) than a biographical medley. Besides an account of his family and life, there are memorials of the electrical pursuits and experiments of Andrew Crosse, pretty full extracts from his correspondence, and a copious supply of the electrician's verses. There are also some anecdotes of other celebrities besides the hero for at times he lived a good deal in the world; and some lively traits of the man himself. Here is the home menage of a natural philosopher.
" AtFyne Court Mr. Crosse was surrounded by a perfect chaos of apparatus. Certainly the old house had more a philosophic than a domestic air about it. The family plate was occasionally called on to make contributions to the crucible' which, with the aid of the laboratory tbrnace, converted tea-pots, tankards, and old-faahioned spoons, into chemically pre silver in a very short space of time. A. great deal of the glass and china of the house was not sabred to remain in vulgar use, but was dedicated to nobler purposes, and was formed into batteries or other electrical arrangements. -The rooms generally seemed in a process of resolving themselves into laboratories or other kinds of scientific dens. You were perfectly comfortable, perfectly at home, under that hospitable roof; but, to speak in geological language, the house appeared to be rather in a transition tate. Lady Lovelace, who was often a guest at Fyne Court, used to say that the dinner-hour was an accident in the day's arrangements.'
There is a story, that after Mr. Crosse had finished building the sixth or seventh furnace m his laboratory, he said, with an air of gr
' eat satisfaction ' I consider new that icy house is thoroughly furnished.' "The old place had got into a terrible habit of wanting repair. In a storm, the slates of the roof seamed as if positively electrified, and dew right and left in mutual repulsion. When I first saw Fyne Court it,was besieged by an army of masons and. carpenters ; Mr. Crosses large philosophical room had fallen clown. Dr. Bockland, at the inauguration meeting of the-Arch=logical Society at Taunton, gave a humorous description of this accident; attributing the circumstance to the effects of misguided lightning, which the electrician was supposed to have trifled with. Tito facts of the ease, however, were more prosaic. A bad architect and a dishonest builder WM the real foundation of the mischief. In the autumn of 1849 this room had just been rebuilt ; but in the midst of all these disturbances numbers of batteries were at work in different corners of the house. You wore taken, perhaps, to an underground cellar to see the progress of an agate that was forming in an electrified solution. Shortly afterwards you might find yourself in a mysterious chamber, 'dark as Erebus, black as night,' excepting where it was dimly lit by the magician-looking lamp, carried by the philosopher himself. There was no sound in that silent room, except the ceaseless and regular dropping of water, an electrical arrangement for favouring the growth of crystals, in imitation of Nature's processes in her subterranean caverns."
The electric wires extended a long way through the grounds, supported on poles apparently in the manner of the electric talegraph; their extent giving their master great electrical power. It is not a matter of wonder that many years ago, ere railways and cheap literature had enlightened. the tneolia mind, such proceedings as electrical experiments involve should throw suspicion over their conductor.
Crosse at a County Meeting.—" When he attempted to speak, a knot of farmers hissed and hooted, and would not for a long time suffer him to be
heard. A stranger, a commercial man from the North of England, noticed the extreme wrath of this particular group, and turning to some one near him, said, 'Why are these farmers so angry with that gentleman ? who is he ? ' Why, don't you know him ? that's Crosse of Broomfield, the thunder and lightning man ; you can't go near his cursed house at night without danger of your life : theta as have been there have seen devils, all surrounded by lightning, dancing on the wires that ho has put up round his grounds.' "
Bottling Lightning.—" i large party had come from a distance to see Mr. Crosso's experiments and apparatus. He, had been taking them to dif ferent parts of the s was his wont, explaining his various philosophical arrangements : at length, on arriving at the organ-gallery, he exhibited two enormous Leyden jars, which he could charge at pleasure by the conducting wires, when the state of the atmosphere was sufficiently electrical. An old gentleman of the party contemplated the arrangement with a look of grave disapprobation : at length, with much solemnity, he observed,. Mr. Crosse, don't you think it is rather impious to bottle the lightning ?' 'Let me answer your question by asking another,' replied Mr. Crosse, laughing, don't you think, sir, it might be considered rather impious to bottle the rain-water ?' " "A little learning is a dangerous thing."—"I remember an anecdote connected with the arrangements of the atmospheric conductor in the organgallery which caused some amusement at the time, The servants were always desired to avoid touching 'any of the apparatus ; but it appears that a house-maid, who was carrying on her vocation of dusting, went up and touched the brass cylinder bearing the words f Noll tee tangere! There was a considerable amount of electricity present in thd'atmosphere, and she got a rather severe shockP, She forthwith went to her master, and complained that That nasty thing in the gallery had nearly kneeked, her down." I thought that I told you never to touch the apparatus,' said Mr. Crow. Yes, sir ; but I thought you had written "No danger" on it !' If all bad translators were so corrected, it would save the world a great deal of literary trash."
Electricity and Vegetation.—" He invariably found that negative electricity was injurious to all vegetation except the development of fungi. Positive electricity, on the other hand, he found most favourable to all vegetation except all fungoid appearances, which it entirely checked. In the course of his experiments he constantly found fungi growing in copper and other acid solutions. On one occasion a mushroom-shaped fungus grew out of electrified hydrosulphuret of potash ; and frequently I have myself seen the surface of an electrified fluid covered, or nearly so, by a thick flesh-like fungus, that was strong enough to bear a considerable weight, and which was so tough as hardly to be torn apart by the fingers. "Mr. Crosse considered that the roots and leaves of plants were in opposite states of electricity ; and he often proposed trying to ruake a battery of growing plants, or at least an arrangement that might prove that electricity was present. I remember his description of a very elegant experiment on some roses. He had two branches cut from the same tree ; they were as nearly alike as it was possible, with the same number of buds, and both equally blown. An arrangement was made by which a negative current of electricity was passed through one, a positive current through the other. In a few hours the negative rose drooped and itself but the positive continued its freshness for nearly a fortnight, the rose tself became full blown, and the buds expanded, and survived an unusual length of time."
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