C. GENEKAL PHYSICS. 199 



a disk of the same color as the ballot that he wishes to 

 throw, and which closes the opening. By the interior ar- 

 rangement of the machine, a vote being once made prevents 

 the expression of a second, so that it is impossible to vote 

 twice. When the president is sure that every one has taken 

 part in the vote, he touches a special button placed at the 

 side of the machine, and instantaneously the work of addi- 

 tion begins. In this operation, by an ingenious contrivance, 

 the white balls are separated from the black, and the totals 

 thus formed occupy two appropriate places upon the table. 

 At this moment the little covers remove themselves, and 

 allow one to see the figures resulting from the addition. 

 At the moment when the president sets the process of addi- 

 tion into operation, all voting is suspended, so as not to de- 

 range the work. Upon the back of the machine there is a 

 system of needles corresponding to each of the openings, 

 which, as soon as the vote is terminated, prints the result 

 upon a sheet of paper prepared for this. A lateral lever 

 permits the reinstating of every thing in its initial condi- 

 tion, ready for a new operation. All these operations are 

 performed by electricity and instantaneously, and the author 

 says that one minute will suffice to count the votes of an 

 assemblage of seven hundred and fifty persons. The com- 

 plete machine is now manufactured to order in Paris, the 

 cost being about twenty dollars per voter. 1 B., 1875, 

 206. 



THE THEOEY OF THE ELECTRICAL MACHINE. 



Poggendorff states that few problems in physics have as 

 yet defied all theories so completely as those offered by the 

 electric machines. Theories there are in plenty; but none 

 explain all the facts, and none are free from unwarranted 

 assumptions. He himself inclines to the opinion that it will 

 not do to assume that the particles of electricity are spher- 

 ical, and exert their action equally in all directions ; but that 

 it is more likely that they are polarized; that they have a 

 definite ran<re on the electrified surface : and that in conse- 

 quence of the movement of this surface the particles them- 

 selves turn. The development of this idea, which is in oppo- 

 sition to the assumption of two electric fluids, as commonly 

 held in Germany, seems, however, to him to be attended 



