"...Electricity, containing as it were, all within its power, alone exhibits the effects of many sciences, combined together different powers, and, by striking the senses in a particular and surprising manner, affords pleasure, and is of use to the ignorant as well as the philosopher, the rich as well as the poor. In Electricity, we are pleased with beholding its penetrating light, exhibited in numberless different forms; we admire its attraction and repulsion, acting upon every kind of body; we are surprised by the shock, terrified by the explosion and force of its battery; but when we consider and examine it as the cause of thunder, lightning, aurora borealis, and other appearances of nature, whose direful effects we can in part imitate, explain, and even avert, we are then involved in a maze, that leaves nothing to contemplate but the inexpressisible and permanent idea of admiration and wonder.". Tiberius Cavallo, A Complete Treatise On Electricity, 1795

"THE electrical effluvia is far more subtile than air, is diffused through all space, surrounds the earth, and pervades every part of it; and such is the extreme fineness, velocity and expansiveness of this active principle, that all other matter seems to be only the body, and this the soul of the universe.".  T. Gale, Electricity or Ethereal Fire Considered, 1802

Static Electricity has captivated humans since the beginning of time.  The practice of actually capturing and harnessing its power only began in the late 1600s by Otto von Guericke.  In 1705 Francis Haukesbee produced artificial light with electricity and paved the way for this new field to become not only entertaining but useful and practical for everyday purposes...

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