We have two special members of our family. Minnie Mayhem and her brother, Max (Maximus Meridius Decatimus, named for a movie character who among other things was a General of the Felix Legion, which had a lion as its symbol. And who can say “Felix” without thinking of the famous cat?).
The scampering thumps of little feet adds merriment to our lives. Removing them from the tops of things keeps us moving, too. It would help if they acknowledged their names when we tell them to “get down,” but we suspect they plot to make sure we don’t get too comfortable in our chairs. Or at our computer desks (the moving cursor seems to be interesting). And Nancy wished they weren’t so interested in helping her get our tax information together on the dining room table.
More than once, we have again been reminded that cats never say, “Oops!”
Nor do they ever apologize. They think that all will be forgiven if they hop up in your lap, lick your forehad, and purr a little bit (that’s Minnie’s modus operandi anyway)
Cat lovers might think that the most peaceful part of their existence is when they’re stretched out in their recliner under an afghan with a cat on top on a chilly day. Sometimes they’ll pet their favorite lap friend and cause static electricity to snap and pop and the fur stand on end. The cat is not usually amused.
Seldom does anyone think of their cat as a power source. But they can be, apparently, as shown by this article we recently came across in the Columbia Daily Statesman of September 16, 1879.
The most remarkable invention in this or any other age is duly chronicled in the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch. It is based upon the electrical properties of the fur of cats.
With a battery of 128 cats the inventor succeeded in generating a current so strong that it instantly polarized all the lightning-arresters and demagnetized all the switch-boards on the way to Omaha. The operators all along the line were terror stricken, and rushed from their offices. Eighteen hundred and nine glass insulators were broken and as many poles shattered as if by lightning. A great deal more damage would doubtless have resulted if the copper rod over which the battery was suspended had not suddenly become red hot and burned the tails off the cats and let them drop.
When only a moderately strong current of electricity is desired, it is obtained by densely populating the small floor of the cage, which is made of sheet copper, that being the best conductor. The electricity thus generated charges the copper floor of the cage, and as it can not pass off to the ground through the glass insulators it seeks its exit over the wires that are connected by soldering to each end of the coper plate.
For generating a powerful current, the cats are carefully and securely tied tail to tail in pairs, and by the lop thus formed they are suspended from a heavy insulated copper rod that passes longitudinally through the cage, to the ends of which are attached the telegraph or telephone lines.
Please do not try to replicate this experiment at home. Do not try to enter it in a school science fair. Better sources of electricity have been developed. However—-
One month later, give or take a few days, after the article was published, Thomas Edison made a workable electric light.
We’re not sure where Edison got his electricity. We have found no historical record that there were cats in his laboratory.
Sometimes as we hear Max and Minnie tearing through our house, we wonder how many watts they’re generating. And how can we use them in the next power outage.