He was called "the man of thunder and lightning" and was compared to mad scientists from Gothic novels. Neighbors hated him, priests cursed him, and colleagues considered him a genius. The inventor Andrew Cross did what was considered possible only for God - he created life from inanimate matter.
I am in a hurry to live
The future inventor was born on June 17, 1784 in the English village of Brumfield. Young Andrew was often ill, and his parents were afraid that he would not live to come of age. The boy spent his time in bed not in vain, reading everything that came across in his father's library. At eight years old, he learned ancient Greek in order to read the great thinkers of the past in the original.
In 1792, his parents sent Andrew to one of the boarding schools in Bristol. There he got bored, quickly mastering the entire program. The teachers allowed the boy to attend the science lectures at the university. They did not expect that the ward would be seriously interested in physics and everything related to electricity. In the sixth grade, Andrew was already making batteries and Leyden jars - primitive capacitors.
“I'm in a hurry to live,” Cross told classmate John Kenyon. - I will consider myself lucky if I live to be 30!
After school, Andrew moved to Oxford and went to college. The parents paid for the studies. But soon a black streak began in the family. First my father died, then my sister and uncle. The last to die was his mother. Left a complete orphan, in 1805 the student who had not completed his studies returned to the estate.
Promotional video:
House with evil spirits
Cross didn’t go to the carnival and amuse himself like other rich heirs. He decided to use the capital left to him in the name of science. Part of the house was converted into a laboratory; lightning rod masts were raised above the roof. To investigate atmospheric electricity, Cross stretched more than five kilometers of wire on poles. Neighbors tried not to approach his house. Flashes of light and strange sounds made them think that an evil spirits lived in the estate.
Drawing of akar, an “ electric tick ” grown by Andrew Cross in 1837
Among the experiments set up by Kross were experiments on growing crystals under the influence of an electric current. He managed to obtain crystals of various minerals in a short time, or, conversely, to purify water from impurities by current. Scientists visiting a colleague were amazed at the scale of the research.
“Cross led me first into a large, high room, in which voltaic pillars of various types and sizes were located on seven tables,” physicist Richard Phillips described his impressions of the visit. “There were a total of 500 batteries in continuous operation and the same number in other rooms, not counting 500 batteries for special experiments. It also contained an electric machine with a battery of 50 capacitors. Kross's device for measuring and collecting atmospheric electricity is also remarkable … The current in it is so strong that capacitors can be charged and discharged 20 times a minute with a roar like cannon shots."
Although scholars visited Andrew, he himself rarely left the estate, fearing for his health. However, this did not stop him from getting married. Mary Ann gave birth to her husband seven children.
Electric Animals
In 1837 Andrew began a new series of crystal growing experiments. One experiment involved passing current through an electrically conductive mineral, porous iron oxide, from the slope of Vesuvius. Cross used a mixture of hydrochloric acid, silicon and potassium carbonate as an impregnating solution.
In 1996, bastards from the Frontier Research Association (USA) tried to repeat Cross's experiments, but failed. Most likely, Cross was hiding some very important detail of the experiments from his colleagues.
“On the 14th day from the beginning of the experiment, I observed through the lens several small whitish protrusions or growths located approximately in the middle of the electrified stone,” the scientist wrote. - On the 18th day, the protrusions increased and released seven or eight strands longer than themselves. On the 26th day, symmetrical insects were formed from the projections, standing upright on several bristles. Until then, I thought they were nascent crystals. On the 28th day, the little creatures began to move their legs. After a few days, they separated from the stone and began to crawl.
Within a few weeks, about a hundred creatures appeared on the stone. I examined them under a microscope and noticed that the small ones had six legs, and the large ones had eight. These insects clearly belong to the genus Acari (ticks), but I do not know yet whether the species is known to us or not."
Zoologists, who decided that "electric animals" did not belong to the familiar species of ticks, suggested calling them Acari Cross "(Cross ticks). Other zoologists stated that the scientist diluted common household ticks in the flask, since the solution turned out to be non-sterile. Then Andrew conducted control experiments with all safety precautions. He used a sealed, sterilized flask and a solution of distilled water, and the wires leading into it were calcined and passed through a container with mercury. The minerals, passing the current, were boiled and treated with acid. Finally, he carried out several experiments on growing mites in one solution, without minerals. In these cases, mites originated at the edge of the liquid.
In the spotlight
One day, mites appeared on the bottom of quartz, immersed five centimeters in a solution of acid and silicon fluoride. To achieve the result, Cross passed an electric current through the solution for over a year.
“I have carefully studied the development of insects,” he wrote. - First, a very small whitish hemisphere appears on the surface of a charged body, sometimes on the positively charged, sometimes at the negatively charged end of the body, sometimes between them, or anywhere. After a few days, this speck grows and grows in height. Whitish wavy filaments appear, easily visible under a weak magnifying glass. Then the first manifestation of animal life begins. If something gets close to the threads, they immediately contract, but expand again some time after the removal of the object. After a few days, these filaments become paws, bristles and form a symmetrical mite. It separates from the place of birth and, if originated under the solution, climbs upward along an electric wire. If the tick is dipped in the solution again,the insect will immediately drown."
After making sure that it was impossible to get home ticks into the flask, the scientist sent a letter describing the experiments to the journal "Transactions of the London Society for the Study of Electricity." It was published in 1837, and the reclusive scientist immediately became the center of attention.
Scandal in a noble society
The discovery caused a real shock in society. Journalists called Cross a blasphemer and atheist, and compared him with Frankenstein and other villainous scientists from Gothic novels. The priests publicly cursed him and once held a rite of exorcism near the estate. Neighbors did not greet Cross, shopkeepers refused to sell him groceries. Then the villagers knocked down the fence near the estate and set fire to the harvest. Nobody dared to attack the house, but the owners received letters with threats every day.
Cross tried to explain to people that he was a Christian and that the experiment had nothing to do with blasphemy, but no one listened to him. Then the scientist became even more isolated and stopped leaving the house.
Cross's experiments were successfully repeated by Henry Wick of Sandwich. Wick took even more precautions to ensure that there was no life before the experiment began. The scientist calcined the flask, used distilled water and chemically obtained oxygen instead of atmospheric air, and sterilized the components of the solution by flame and boiling. After a year and a half of electrical treatment of the liquid, ticks appeared. Wick explained the long term by the fact that his batteries are very weak compared to the current source at Cross. Wick found that the number of insects depends on the amount of carbon in the solution. Other scientists tried to do the same, but they may not have had the patience.
The hype around "electric animals" eventually faded away, and the recluse was able to leave the house.
An unsolved mystery
Mary Ann died in 1846. The scientist lived as a bachelor for four years, and in 1850 he married again. Cross at that time was 66 years old, his bride Cornelia was only 23 years old. The marriage was happy. Cornelia gave birth to her husband three more children. Under her influence, Andrew grew bolder, began to travel outside the county and visited London to meet with the physicist Michael Faraday.
In the spring of 1855, 70-year-old Cross was paralyzed after a stroke. He understood that he did not have long to live, and tried to dictate to Cornelia the details of his inventions every day. She learned that her husband was successfully working to extract silver from water and was on the verge of inventing the telephone. He refused to talk only about his experiments to create artificial insects.
Andrew Cross died on 6 July 1855 in the same room in which he was born. Together with him, the mystery of the origin of life from inorganic materials disappeared into oblivion. Perhaps he managed to accidentally stumble upon the formula of the "primordial soup", about which supporters of the independent emergence of life on Earth speak.
Source: "Secrets of the XX century"