184 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



furnish an electric current; and ii. To show the circumstances 

 which are required for its production *. 



6. SINGULAR ELECTRICAL EFFECT. 



4 Whilst the workmen were soldering the iron water pipes in Water 

 Street/ says the Winchester Republican, * electric shocks were pro- 

 duced to such a degree as to cause them to discontinue their labour 

 for the remainder of the day. Several of our citizens who were 

 standing by, got into the ditch and tried the experiment, when the 

 effect was the same on all. The pipes are united in the following 

 manner : They are nine feet long, perfect cylinders, with a bore of 

 six inches, and a bowl at one end four inches deep ; at the spring is 

 a funnel pipe, which is inserted into the bowl of the succeeding 

 pipe, the spigot end of which is inserted into the bowl of the next, 

 and so on. When fifty or a hundred pipes are laid down in this 

 manner the process of soldering commences. This is done by first 

 ramming into the joint a few strands of rope yarn, and then applying 

 clay around the joint, leaving an aperture at the top into which the 

 molten lead is poured ; the clay is then taken off, and the lead 

 driven home with a blunt chisel and hammer. It was in driving 

 home the lead that the shocks were produced. The sun was nearly 

 vertical, and the thermometer at 93, the ditch somewhat damp, 

 and the pipes warm from the action of the sun upon them. The 

 principle is no doubt that of galvanism ; but as the cause is sup- 

 posed to be entirely new, the plumber (Mr. Johnson, from Phila- 

 delphia) having never known anything like it during his long expe- 

 rience in that city, we should be glad to receive the opinion of 

 scientific men upon it. We have since been informed, that after a 

 heavy rain on the ensuing day, and the covering of a few feet of the 

 pipes some distance above with earth, the phenomenon did not 

 occur, nor has it since occurred.' 



A correspondent in Sillimarfs Journal considers the effect as no 

 doubt thermo-electric, and Professor Silliman agrees with him. 

 The voltaic series of iron and lead is supposed to be rendered active 

 by the intense heat of the sun, the black colour of the pipes causing 

 them to rise to a higher degree than the neighbouring atmosphere, 

 and the pipes being themselves unequally acted upon, from lying in 

 a ditch f. 



7. EXPLOSION OF PHOSPHORUS AND NITRIC ACID. 



Dr. Hare had prepared some very strong nitric acid (having used 

 above one half more of sulphuric acid than the equivalent propor- 

 tion), which had a specific gravity above 1.5, and used it to illus- 

 trate the action upon phosphorus. A tube about seven-eighths of 

 an inch in diameter, closed at one end, was placed within a stout 



* Med. Phys. Journ., 1831, 454. | Silliman's Journal, xvii. 194. 



