The notion of storing lightning in a bottle for use when required seems to have been frequently reverted to by the authors of the last century as a means of entertaining the public.  Thus a writer in “The World,” in 1754, makes no doubt “of being able to bring thunder and lightning to market at a much cheaper price than common gunpowder,” and describes a friend who has applied himself wholly to electrical experiments, and discovered that “the most effectual and easy method of making this commodity is by grinding a certain quantity of air between a glass ball and a bag of sand, and when you have ground it into fire your lightning is made, and then you may either bottle it up, or put it into casks properly seasoned for that purpose, and send it to market.”  The inventor, however, confesses that what he has hitherto made is not of a sufficient degree of strength to answer all the purposes of natural lightning; but he is confident that he will soon be able to effect this, and has, indeed, already so far perfected his experiments that, in the presence of several of his neighbours, he has succeeded in producing a clap of thunder which blew out a candle, accompanied by a flash of lightning which made an impression upon a pat of butter standing upon the table.  He is also confident that in warm weather he can shake all the pewters upon his shelf, and fully expects, when his thermometer is at sixty-two degrees and a half, to be able to sour all the small beer in his cellar, and to break his largest pier-glass.  This paper in “The World,” apart from its humorous intention, is curious as a record of early dabblings in electrical experiments.  It may be mentioned that in one of Franklin’s letters, written apparently before the year 1750, the points of resemblance between lightning and the spark obtained by friction from an electrical apparatus are distinctly stated.  It is but some thirty-five years ago that Andrew Crosse, the famous amateur electrician, was asked by an elderly gentleman, who came to witness his experiments with two enormous Leyden jars charged by means of wires stretched for miles among the forest trees near Taunton:  “Mr. Crosse, don’t you think it is rather impious to bottle the lightning?”

“Let me answer your question by asking another,” said Crosse, laughing.  “Don’t you think it might be considered rather impious to bottle the rain-water?”

Further, it may be remembered that curious reference to this part of our subject is made by “the gentleman in the small clothes” who lived next door to Mrs. Nickleby, and presumed to descend the chimney of her house.  “Very good,” he is reported to have said on that occasion, “then bring in the bottled lightning, a clean tumbler, and a corkscrew.”