Beddoes at the Philosophical Institution of Bristol. It begins thus:
"Sir: The first experimenters in animal electricity remarked the
property that well calcined carbon has of conducting ordinary galvanic
action. I have found that this substance possesses the same properties
as metallic bodies for the production of the spark, when it is used for
establishing a communication between the extremities of Signor Volta's
pile."
In none of these extracts, however, do we find anything that has
reference to the properties of the arc as a continuous, luminous spark.
It was in his subsequent researches that Davy made known its properties.
It will be seen, however, that the electric light had attracted
attention before its special property of continuity had been observed.
It results from these facts that Robertson's experiment was in no wise
anterior to that of Davy. The inventor of the phantasmagoria did not
obtain the arc, properly so called, with its characteristic continuity,
but merely produced a spark between two carbons--an experiment that had
already been made known by Davy in 1800.
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