deavoring to sustain his false theory by experimental proofs, was led to the discovery of the voltaic pile, or, as we now call it, the voltaic battery, an instrument whose influence on civilization can be compared only with the printing-press and the steam-engine. Yet, although the whole action of the battery was in direct contradiction to his pet theory, still, to the last, Volta persistently defended the erroneous doctrine he had espoused in his controversy with Galvani thirty years before, and he died in 1827, without realizing how great a boon he had been instrumental in conferring on mankind; so true it is, that Providence works out her bright designs even through the blindness and mistakes of man.
But there is another lesson to be learned from this history, which cannot be too often rehearsed in this self-sufficient age, which boasts so proudly of its practical wisdom. There were, doubtless, many practical men in that city of Bologna to smile at their sage professor who had spent ten long years in studying, to little apparent purpose, the twitchings of frogs' hind-legs, and there was many a jest among the courtiers of Europe at the expense of the learned philosophers who "wasted" so much time in discussing the cause of such trivial phenomena. But how is it now?
Less than a century has passed since Galvani's death; and, in a small hut, on the shores of Valentia Bay, may be seen one of the most skillful of a new class of practical men, representing a profession which owes its origin to Galvani and Volta. This electrician is watching a spot of light on the scale of an instrument which is called a galvanometer. Since the fathers fell asleep, the field of knowledge which they first entered has spread out wider and wider before the untiring explorers who have succeeded them. Oersted and Seebeck, Arago and Ampère, Faraday and our own Henry, have made wonderful discoveries in that field; and other great men, like Steinheil, Wheatstone, Morse, and Thomson, have invented ingenious instruments and appliances, by which these discoveries might be made to yield great practical results.
The spot of light, which the electrician is watching, is reflected from one of the latest of these inventions—the reflecting galvanometer of Thomson. He and his assistants had been watching by turns the same spot for several days, since the Great Eastern had steamed from the bay, paying out a cable of insulated wire. These electricians had no anxiety as to the result, for daily signals had been exchanged between the ship and the shore, as hundreds after hundreds of miles of this electrical conductor had been laid on the bed of the broad ocean. The coast of Newfoundland had already been reached, and they were only waiting for the landing of the cable at the now far-distant end.
At length the light quivers, and the spot begins to move! It answers to concerted signals! And soon the operator spells out the
