Or Teach Dogs to Read?
120-year-old magazines reveal hidden scientific 'discoveries' from canals on the red planet to teaching dogs to read
Daily Mail</a
May 4, 2015
A treatment for electric shocks, the location of Atlantis, a photograph of ball lightning and canals on the surface of Mars.
No, these aren’t recent 21st Century findings; they’re some of the bizarre ‘scientific discoveries’ made by Victorians more than one hundred years ago.
An author unearthed the stories after scouring a series of magazines – and they range from the weird to the downright unusual.
The amazing findings were made by Caroline Rochford, 31, from Wakefield, West Yorkshire and are detailed in her book ‘Great Victorian Discoveries: Astounding Revelations and Misguided Assumptions’.
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The professional genealogist, who runs the company Heir Line with her husband, found the stories when she inherited a collection of old Victorian magazines in 2011 from an elderly relative.
She told MailOnline her book reveals ‘hundreds of the greatest, wackiest and little-known discoveries that were made by scientists and explorers at the end of the 19th Century.’
THE ELECTRIC PLANT
One of the supposed scientific discoveries, in 1885, involved an ‘electric plant’ found in Hindustan.
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Dubbed phytolacca electrica, it supposedly generated a strong current of electricity that flowed all the way through it when in full bloom.
‘When the stem or a twig was snapped by hand, an intense electric shock was felt, causing even the strongest man to stagger backwards,’ explained Mrs Rochford.
‘Its discovery was quite widely reported at the time – with newspapers around the world printing the story – but sadly there seem to be few modern accounts of it.
‘Perhaps it was so rare that other examples have never been found.
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’But that’s one of the things I found so charming about the articles – they offered a glimpse into a forgotten world.’
THE FIRST PICTURE OF BALL LIGHTNING
Another article discussed a phenomenon that we know of today – ball lightning – and is apparently the earliest known photograph of the effect.
‘The photograph was taken by Mr Dunn, an ironmonger’s son, who witnessed this unusual thunderstorm from the window of his house in Newcastle on 17th July 1891,’ said Mrs Rochford.
‘The storm was raging over the River Tyne, and suddenly the ball lightning whizzed across the river, before vanishing into thin air.’
This is reportedly the first ever picture of ball lightning, taken by an ironmonger’s son in 1891. ‘The storm was raging over the River Tyne, and suddenly the ball lightning whizzed across the river, before vanishing into thin air,’ explained Mrs Rochford
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