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Show FIRST USED WORD ELECTRICITY. Honor That Ssems to Belong to Sir Thomas Browne. No one seems to have recalled, ln connection with the commemoration of Sir Thomas Browne at Norwich, that ho was the first person to use tho word "electricity" as a noun. Gilbert Gil-bert and others who followed him had adopted the term "electrics" to denote substances which, like amber, became attractive when rubbed; but they had used no name for tho unseen Itself. Tho first occurrence of the substantive substan-tive in English (or, for that matter, In any language) occurs on page 79 of tho "Pseudodoxla Epldemlca" (1G4G) In tho following passage: "Glasse attracts but weakely though clcere, some slick stones and thick glasses Indifferently; Arsenic not at all; Saltes generally but weakely ps Sal Gemma, Alum and also Tal. t ; nor very discoverably by any friction; but If gently warmed at the fire and wiped with a dry cloth, they will better discover their Electricities." Prof. S. P. Thompson In London Times. |