360 Mr. Faraday's Researches in Eledricitij, [Series XL) 



■ jg- 9- 



and the substance being tbiuid free from 

 all electrical excitement, was then used 

 in the experiment ; after which it was 

 removed and again examined, to ascer- 

 tain that it had received no charge, but 

 had acted really as a dielectric. With 

 all these precautions the results were the 

 same : and it is thus very satisfactory 

 to obtain the curved inductive action 

 through solid bodies^ as any possible 

 effect from the translation of charged 

 particles in fluids or gases, which some 

 persons might imagine to be the case, is 

 here entirely negatived. 



1229. In these experiments with solid 

 dielectrics, the degree of charge, as- 

 sumed by the carrier ball at the situations w, o, p (fig. 9.), 

 was decidedly greater than that given to the ball at the same 

 places when air only intervened between it and the metal 

 hemisphere. This effect is consistent with what will hereafter 

 be found to be the respective relations of these bodies, as to 

 their power of facilitating induction through them (1269. 

 1273. 1277.). 



1230. I might quote many other forms of experiment, some 

 old and some new, in which induction in curved or contorted 

 lines takes place, but think it unnecessary after the preceding 

 results; I shall therefore mention but two. If a conductor 

 A, (fig. 8.) be electrified, and an uninsulated metallic ball B, 



Fig. 8. 



or even a plate, provided the edges be not too thin, be held 

 before it, a small electrometer at c or at d, uninsulated, will 

 give signs of electricity, opposite in its nature to that of A, 

 and therefore caused by induction, although the influencing 

 and influenced bodies cannot be joined by a right line passing 

 through the air. Or if, the electrometers being removed^ a 

 point be fixed at the back of the ball in its uninsulated state 

 as at C, this point will become luminous and discharge the 

 conductor A. The latter experiment is described by Nichol- 

 son*, who, however, reasons eri'oneously upon it. As to its 



* Encyclopcedia Brilannica, vol. vi. p. 504. 



