Hydro-electric Machine. 199 



to cause the electricity to pass in short sparks, instead of a 

 uniform current. 



The collective periods during which the machine was in 

 action, while accomplishing these effects, amounted to about 

 an hour and a quarter, but by using very narrow tubes, and 

 operating upon small quantities of liquid, I could obtain 

 equally decisive results in the space of eight or ten minutes. 



In making some experiments similar to the one I have just 

 described, I perceived that when the electric current was 

 passed through two glass vessels containing pure water, and 

 communicating with each other by means of wet cotton, the 

 water rose above its original level in the vessel containing the 

 negative pole, and subsided below it in that which contained 

 the positive pole, indicating the transmission of water in the 

 direction of a current flowing from the positive to the negative 

 wire. The investigation of this phsenomenon led me to a most 

 unexpected and remai'kable result, which, if I mistake not, will 

 greatly excite your interest. Fig. 4. 



Two wine-glasses, N and 

 P, fig. 4, filled nearly to 

 the edge with distilled water, 

 and placed about four-tenths 

 of an inch from each other, 

 were connected together by 

 a wet silk thread, of sufficient 

 length to allow a portion of it to be coiled up in each glass 

 as represented in the figure. The negative wire, or that which 

 communicated with the boiler, was inserted in the glass N 

 (which I shall call the negative glass), and the positive wire, or 

 that which communicated with the ground, was placed in the 

 glass P (which I shall call the positive glass). The machine 

 being then put in action the following singular effects pre- 

 sented themselves. 



1st. A slender column of water, inclosing the silk thread in 

 its centre, was instantly formed between the two glasses, and 

 the silk thread began to move from the negative towards the 

 positive pole, and was quickly all drawn over and deposited 

 in the positive glass. 



2nd. -The column of water after this continued for a few 

 seconds suspended between the glasses as before, but without 

 the support of the thread ; and when it broke the electricity 

 passed in sparks. 



3rd. When one end of the silk thread was made fast in the 

 negative glass, the water diminished in the positive glass, and 

 increased in the negative one; showing apparently that the 

 motion of the thread, when free to move, was in the reverse 

 direction of the current of water. 



