f lightning," and for a moment made
him believe that "he was done for." Continuing his experiments,
nevertheless, he found that if the jar were placed on a piece of metal
on the table, a shock would be received by touching this piece of metal
with one hand and touching the wire with the other--that is, a path was
made for the electrical discharge through the body. This was practically
the same experiment as made by Von Kleist with his bottle and nail,
but carried one step farther, as it showed that the "jar" need not
necessarily be held in the hand, as believed by Von Kleist. Further
experiments, continued by many philosophers at the time, revealed what
Von Kleist had already pointed out, that the electrified jar remained
charged for some time.

Soon after this Daniel Gralath, wishing to obtain stronger discharges
than could be had from a single Leyden jar, conceived the idea of
combining several jars, thus for the first time grouping the generators
in a "battery" which produced a discharge strong enough to kill birds
and small animals. He also attempted to measure the strength of the
discharges, but soon gave it up in despair, and the solution of this
problem was left for late nineteenth-century scientists.

The advent of the Leyden jar, which made it possible to produce strong
electrical discharges from a small and comparatively simple device, was
followed by more spectacular demonstrations of various kinds all
over Europe. These exhibitions aroused the interest of the kings and
noblemen, so that electricity no longer remained a "plaything of the
philosophers" alone, but of kings as well. A favorite demonstration was
that of sending the electrical discharge through long lines of soldiers
linked together by pieces of wire, the discharge causing them to "spring
into the air simultaneously" in a most astonishing manner. A certain
monk in Paris prepared a most elaborate series of demonstrations for
the amusement of the king, among other things linking together an entire
regiment of nine hundred men, causing them to perform simultaneous
springs and contortions in a manner most amusing to the royal guests.
But not all the experiments being made were of a purely spectacular
character, although most of them accomplished little except in a
negative way. The famous Abbe Nollet, for example, combined useful
experiments with spectacular demonstrations, thus keeping up popular
interest while aiding the cause of scientific electri