A Dictionary of Chemistry, on the Basis of Mr. Nicholson's, Vol. 2: In Which the Principles of the Science Are Investigated Anew, and Its Applications . Agriculture, and Manufactures, Detailed

Excerpt from A Dictionary of Chemistry, on the Basis of Mr. Nicholson's, Vol. 2: In Which the Principles of the Science Are Investigated Anew, and Its Applications to the Phenomena of Nature, Medicine, Mineralogy, Agriculture, and Manufactures, Detailed

If we suspend close together, by sill: threads, two cylinders of rush-pith, and touch their lower ends with either the rub bed wax or glass, the pieces of pith will instantly recede from each other at a con siderable angle. If we now merely ap proach to the bottom of the diverging cy linders, the rod with which they had been touched, their divergence will increase; but if we approach the other rod, they will instantly collapse through their whole extent. When the rods are rubbed in the dark, a lambent light seems diffused over them, and a pungent spark will pass into a. Knuckle brought near them. If the per son who makes these experiments happens to stand on a cake of wax, or a stool with glass feet, then on rubbing the glass tube, he will acquire the above attractive and repulsive powers; but the light bodies re pelled by the tube, will be attracted by his body, and vice versa. Hence we see, that the rubbing body acquires electrical pro perties, dissimilar to those acquired by the substances rubbed.

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