Extropia’s Curious Science

EXTROPIA’S CURIOUS SCIENCE

ANDREW CROSS AND THE ELECTRIC MITES

Welcome to an occasional series on weird and wacky ideas from the fringes and scrap heap of science.

“It’s alive! Alive!”.

Dr Frankenstein famously used electricity to reanimate human remains. Electricity’s power to create life was also apparently demonstrated by one Andrew Crosse, a gentleman scientist known as the ‘thunder and lightning man’.

It was in 1836 that Crosse was engaged in an experiment whose purpose was to create artificial crystals. The method involved dripping a chemical solution through an electrified stone. After a couple of weeks, Crosse observed tiny white spots on the stone’s surface, and after twenty six days those dots underwent a remarkable transformation, becoming like filaments at first and then, later on, (in Crosse’s own words) “each figure assumed the form of a perfect insect, standing erect on a few bristles which formed its tail”. Over the weeks, a hundred such insects were formed.

The creatures were later identified as being a species of mite, and were tentatively classified as ‘Arcarus galvanicus’. When news of the mysterious generation of these ‘electric mites’ got out, Crosse found himself denounced as a Frankenstein-like madman.

Interestingly, Crosse was not the only person to have observed the appearance of mites during experiments. Michael Faraday, the man who worked out the principle behind every electric motor, reported to the Royal Institution of Great Britain that he had also observed mites appearing after some of his experiments.

Where were these mites coming from? Although the name ‘Arcarus galvanicus’ suggests some kind of spontaneous generation from electricity, neither Faraday or Crosse ever suggested they had actually created life from scratch via the power of electric currents. Crosse himself said, “I have never ventured an opinion as to the cause of their birth, and for a very simple reason- I was unable to form one”.

One can think up some plausible explanations. It was highly likely that these gentlemen scientists were not working in sterile conditions. Probably the insects were common dust mites whose eggs had already contaminated the equipment. Or maybe, just maybe, these tiny critters really had been summoned into existence via the mysterious power of electricity.

‘It’s alive!’.

REFERENCES

‘Far Out’ by Mark Pilkington.