Electric

(e-lektrik.) [From Gr. elektron, amber.] (Phy.) The earliest experimenters in electricity found that while they could excite electrically a certain cla of bodies, such as amber, sealing-wax, and gla , by friction, there were others which were incapable of electric excitement; and the efforts of the first students of electric science were directed to the division of all bodies into two cla es-those which could, and those which could not, be excited by friction. The former they called electrics, from the Greek name for amber, the chief of the excitable bodies, and the latter cla they called non-electrics; names which, it is said, were applied by Gilbert of Col chester in A. D. 1600. It was shown, however, by M. Du Fay, that electrics and non electrics are identical with non-conductors and conduotors respectively; that the reason why a bra rod is apparently un excitable and anon-electric, is that the bra has the power of permitting the electricity, as fast as it is produced, to pa away along its surface to any other body, as, for example, the hand of the experimenter; and that if proper precautions be taken, such as holding the bra rod by means of a gla handle, or supporting it by a silk string, it may be excited by friction, just as easily as a rod of gla . From that time the distinction between electrics and non-electrics held no longer in the original form. The terms are still, however, used.-E.CLOCK, See CLOCK, p. 198. [s. 320]