286 Mr. Faraday's Experimental Researches in Electricity. 



munication, and rendered a free conductor in every part. This 

 chamber was insulated in the lecture-room of the Royal In- 

 stitution; a glass tube above six feet in length was passed 

 through its side, leaving about four feet within and two feet 

 on the outside, and through this a wire passed from the large 

 electrical machine (290.) to the air within. By working the 

 machine, the air within this chamber could be brought into 

 what is considered a highly electrified state (being, in fiict, the 

 same state as that of the air of a room in which a powerful 

 machine is in operation), and at the same time the outside of 

 the insulated cube was everywhere strongly charged. But 

 putting the chamber in communication with the perfect dis- 

 charging train described in a former series (292.), and work- 

 ing the machine so as to bring the air within to its utmost de- 

 gree of charge, if I quickly cut off the connexion with the 

 machine, and at the same moment or instantly after insulated 

 the cube, the air within had not the least power to communi- 

 cate a further charge to it. If any portion of the air was 

 electrified, as glass or other insulators may be charged (1171.), 

 it was accompanied by a corresponding opposite action 'within 

 the cube, the whole effect being merely a case of induction. 

 Every attempt to charge air bodily and independently with 

 the least portion of either electricity failed. 



1174. I put a delicate gold-leaf electrometer within the 

 cube, and then charged the whole by an outside communication, 

 very strongly, for some time together ; but neither during the 

 charge or after the discharge did the electrometer or air with- 

 in show the least signs of electricity. I charged and discharged 

 the whole arrangement in various ways, but in no case could 

 I obtain the least indication of an absolute charge ; or of one 

 by induction in which the electricity of one kind had the small- 

 est superiority in quantity over the other. I went into the 

 cube and lived in it, and using lighted candles, electrometers, 

 and all other tests of electrical states, I could not find the least 

 influence upon them, or indication of anything particular 

 given by them, though all the time the outside of the cube 

 was powerfully charged, and large sparks and brushes were 

 darting off from every part of its outer surface. The conclu- 

 sion I have come to is, that non-conductors, as well as con- 

 ductors, have neveryet had an absolute and independent charge 

 of one electricity communicated to them, and that to all ap- 

 pearance such a state of matter is impossible. 



1 175. There is another view of this question which may be 

 taken under the supposition of the existence of an electric 

 fluid or fluids. It may be impossible to have the one fluid or 

 State in a free condition without its producing by induction the 



