WILLIAM WATSON
Naturally, the new discoveries made necessary a new nomenclature,
new words and electrical terms being constantly employed by the
various writers of that day. Among these writers was the English
scientist William Watson, who 21321r1719v was not only a most prolific writer
but a tireless investigator. Many of the words coined by him are
now obsolete, but one at least, "circuit," still remains in use.
In 1746, a French scientist, Louis Guillaume le Monnier, bad made
a circuit including metal and water by laying a chain half-way
around the edge of a pond, a man at either end holding it. One of
these men dipped his free hand in the water, the other presenting
a Leyden jar to a rod suspended on a cork float on the water,
both men receiving a shock simultaneously. Watson, a year later,
attempted the same experiment on a larger scale. He laid a wire
about
twelve hundred feet long across
banks, a man at one end holding the wire and touching the water.
A second man on the opposite side held the wire and a Leyden jar;
and a third touched the jar with one hand, while with the other
he grasped a wire that extended into the river. In this way they
not only received the shock, but fired alcohol as readily across
the stream as could be done in the laboratory. In this experiment
Watson discovered the superiority of wire over chain as a
conductor, rightly ascribing this superiority to the continuity
of the metal.
Watson continued making similar experiments over longer
watercourses, some of them as long as eight thousand feet, and
while engaged in making one of these he made the discovery so
essential to later inventions, that the earth could be used as
part of the circuit in the same manner as bodies of water.
Lengthening his wires he continued his experiments until a
circuit of four miles was made, and still the electricity seemed
to traverse the course instantaneously, and with apparently
undiminished force, if the insulation was perfect.
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