MDDM18: The Fam'd Leyden-Jar Danse Macabre

[Dave Monroe]

   "At a short Arpeggio from the Clavier, a Voice
thro' the Vapour announces, 'The Moment now ye've all
been waiting fo...the Saloon of the Orchid Tavern is
pleas'd to Present, the fam'd Leyden-Jar Danse
Macabre! with that Euclid of the Elecktrick,
Philadelphia's own Poor Richard, in the part of
Death.'
   "Eager Applause, as into the Lanthorn-Light comes a
hooded, Scythe-bearing Figure in Skeleton's
Disguise,--tho' the Instant it begins to speak, all
sinister Impression is compromis'd.  'Ah...?
ex-cellent....  Now, if I might have a few
Volunteers...from what obviously, here tonight, is the
Flower of Philadelphian Youth....  Behold, Pilgrims of
Prodigy, my new Battery,-- twenty-four Jars crackling
and ready.' [...] 'Come, Gentlemen,-- who'll be
next,-- that's it, go-o-od, Line of Fops, all hold
hands, Line of Fops, how many have we now,-- dear me,
not enough, come, one more, ever room for one
more....'  Thus briskly collecting into Line a dozen
or so heedless Continentals, placing into the hands of
the hindmost a Copper Cable from one Terminal of the
Battery, and grasping the hand of the foremost,
Franklin reaches with the Blade of his Scythe to touch
the other Terminal [...] so that the resulting Tableau
is lit by terrifying stark Flashes of Blue-white
Light, amid the harsh Sputter of the Fulminous Fluid,
and the giggling, indeed Screaming, of the
Participants"
(M&D, Ch. 29, p. 294)

A la the L.E.D., tres Vegas, non?  

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0109&msg=60179&sort=date

And note as well ...

http://www.noiseland.co.uk/excellent.wav

Danse Macabre ...

http://www.bibliotheque.polytechnique.fr/expositions/incunables/image/incunablea.gif

http://www.feelingsurfer.net/garp/poesie/Baudelaire.Danse_macabre.html

Okay ...

"Who would ever have imagined that Electricity would
have learned cultivators in North America?"

--Giuseppe Veratti, Osservazione fatta in Bologna
l'anno MDCCLII de i fenomeni elettrici nuovamenta
scoperti in America e confermati a Parigi (Bologna:
Nella Stamperia di Lelio della Volpe, n.d.), p. 1 ...


>From Richard Heilbron, Electricity in the 17th and
18th Centuries (New York: Dover, 1999 [Berkeley: U of
Cal P, 1979), Ch. XIII, "The Invention of the
Condenser, " pp. 309-23 ...

2. THE LEYDEN JAR

"... to draw 'electrical fire' from water electrified
in a glass vessel....  One places a jar filled with
water on an insulating stand and runs a wire into the
water from the prime conductor; the effluvia flow into
the water, where thy are retained by the semipermeable
galss and the insulating support.  When the water is
'filled,' on stops the machine, approaches a finger to
the PC, and elicits the desired spark." (pp. 311-2)

   "Others tried the bottle.  They experienced, or so
they said, nosebleedings, fevers, temporary paralysis,
concussions, convulsions, and prolonged dizziness."
(p. 314)

   "These exagerrations should rather delight rather
than annoy the historian: they confirm that the
condenser flagrantly violated received principles of
electricity.  The electricians were no more able to
explain the jar than was the general public who came
to witness its power.  Their theories had ceased to
predict the outcome of events; their stories were the
natural consequence of the uncertainty--even fear--in
th face of a manifestation of electrical force far
stronger than any they had yet experienced....  might
not ... [a] trivial alteration of the Leyden
experiment transport an unlucky electrician into the
next world?" (p. 315)

THE CIRCUIT

"By another easy inference, electricians concluded
that if one man, say A, holds the jar and a second, Z,
touches the conductor, both will feel the shock when
they bring their hands together.  How many others, B,
C, D, etc., might be inserted between the first pair?"
(p. 318)

   "The chains were effective detectors.... only those
who stood in a direct line joining the jar's wire to
its outer coating passed the discharge." (p. 318)

http://www.thebakken.org/electricity/Leyden-jar.html


Ch. XIV, "Benjamin Franklin," pp. 324-43 ...

"In January 1746, when Benjamin Franklin attained the
age of forty and the leisure toward which he had long
been working, he was busily engaged in advancing the
study of natural philosophy in America.... And so, by
coincidence, he became eager to produce, and free to
attempt an exemplary philosophical study at precisely
the moement when news of the German novelties in
electricity first reached the new world.
   "Franklin had been introduced to the subject by a
Dr. Spencer of Edinburgh, an itinerant lecturer whose
show he had seen in Boston in 1743 and whom he
sponsored in Philadelphia the following year. 
Spencer's bag of tricks included a demonstration that
'Fire is diffus'd through all Space, and may be
produc'd from all Bodies:' he strung up a litle boy
and, according to an eyewitness, caused 'Sparks of
Fire' to proceed from his face and hands 'by only
rubbing a Glass Tube at his Feet.'  This was but to
repeat Gray's stale diversion ..." (p. 324)

http://tuna.uchicago.edu/homes/jack/eighteenth/experience.electricite.jpeg

3. THE LEYDEN JAR

"To analyze 'Musschenbroek's wonderful bottle,' the
Philadelphians required more than the concepts of
conservation, electricity plus and minus, and the
machine as pump.  They also had to make assumptions
about the interaction of electric matter and electrics
per se.  Franklin characteristically adopted a simple
and serviceable hypothesis, which happened to be novel
besides: he held the glass is absolutely imprmeable to
the electrical fire, a doctrine recognized by his
followers and opponents alike as the central principle
of his system." (p. 330)

And, what the heck ...

   "The season of 1748 would not have been complete
without elaborate new diversions.  Here is one any
number can play.  Take a large picture of the king
(may God presereve him!), cut off a two-inch border
all around, and glue the remainder to the inside of
the picture's glass cover.  Now gild the empty glass
inside, an exactly corresponding area outside, and the
intrnal edge of the back of the frame, excepting a
small part at the top.  Connect the gilding on th edge
to that inside the glass.  Past the remaining portioon
of the portrait outside the glass over the gilding so
that the picture appears of a piuece, and place a
movable gilt crown over the king's forehead. 
Electrify the picture.  Holding it by the ungilded
upper edge, offer it to a friend and invite him to
remove the crown.  His left hands grasps the gilded
edge, connected to the inner gilt surface of the
glass; his right approaches the crown, connected to
the outer gilt surface beneath the two-inch border; h
receives a sharp blow for his treason.  If several
people, joining hands, take the shock together, the
game is called 'The Conspirators.'"  (p. 334)

That last paragraph paraphrasing Benjamin Franklin's
Experiments, ed. I. Bernard Cohen (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard UP, 1941 [1774]), Letter IV, Sec. 20, pp.
193-4 (q.v.) ...

http://www.bartleby.com/225/0607.html

http://archives.caltech.edu/Images/franklin_book.jpg

http://www.octavo.com/collections/projects/frkelc/about/

So much for Harlequin, however, let us get out into ..








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