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original abodes, and from which they are driven into a higher sphere by the [[strikethrough]] chemical motion [[/strikethrough]] vis viva of electricity.

But our object in this [[strikethrough]] paper [[/strikethrough]] is intended for the purpose of drawing attention to that electrical instinct we constantly see manifested in the animal and vegetable kingdom. Bosswell in his life of Johnson, says the [[strikethrough]] latter [[/strikethrough]] learned philologist laughed at the silliness of those who believe their minds to be affected by meteorological causes. But, "alas" exclaims the biographer, "it is too certain that, where the frame has delicate fibres, and there is a fine sensibility, such influences of the air are [[strikethrough]] irri [[/strikethrough]] irresistible."

Electrical influences upon the mental and animal sensibilities are so proverbial that in Italy it is common to say of a stupid book that "it was written in the time of the sirocco." And the spanish people who are also subject to the electrical disturbances coming from the same source, and [[strikethrough]] into [[/strikethrough]] by them called the Solanao, have a proverb that no animals except a pig and an Englishman are insensible to its effects. And they say "do not ask a favor in the time of the solano," believing that at that time persons are too ill humuored to do a kindness to a neighbor. Who so stolid among us skinned americans as not to be sensible to the nerve gnawinig effects of a north or southeaster in the winter seasons?

It has brought men to the gibbet. You might as well try to make hay during a thundergust as to attempt to drive ordinary commercial business when a south east gale is blowing in the winter season.

While mankind is more severely affected during the prevalence of these electrical disturbances, the lower order of animals, and even vegetables, are the better judges of its coming. They know many things by instinct,  

Transcription Notes:
*Sirocco is a Mediterranean wind that comes from the Sahara and can reach hurricane speeds. *The Solano is an easterly to south-easterly wind in the south of Spain.