200 Mr. Faraday on Static Electrical Inductive Action. 
so much concerned with how a particle must be displaced re- 
latively to the medium, as with how it must be displaced rela- 
tively to the front of the wave. And the confounding of these 
two is (as I said before) the cause of Mr. Earnshaw’s diffi- 
culties and the explanation of the inapplicability of his objec- 
tions. 
XXXII. On Static Electrical Inductive Action. By MicHaE. 
Farapay, Esq., D.C.L., F.R.S. 
To R. Phillips, Esq., F.R.S. 
Dear PHILiirs, 
peer. you may think the following experiments worth 
notice; their value consists in their power to give a very 
precise and decided idea to the mind respecting certain princi- 
ples of inductive electrical action, which I find are by many ac- 
cepted with a degree of doubt or obscurity that takes away 
much of their importance: they are the expression and proof of 
certain parts of my view of induction*, Let A in the diagram 
represent an insulated pewter ice- 
pail ten and a half inches high 
and seven inches diameter, con- 
nected by a wire with a delicate 
gold-leaf electrometer E, and let 
C be a round brass ball insulated 
by adry thread of white silk, three 
or four feet in length, so as to re- 
move the influence of the hand 
holding it from the ice-pail below. 
Let A be perfectly discharged, 
then let C be charged at a di- | 
stance by a machine or Leyden (c) 
jar, and introduced into A as in 
the figure. If C be positive, E 
also will diverge positively; if C 
be taken away, E will collapse E 
perfectly, the apparatus being in 
good order. As C enters the 
vessel A the divergence of E will 
increase until C is about three 
inches below the edge of the ves- 
sel, and will remain quite steady and unchanged for any lower 
distance. This shows that at that distance the inductive ac- 
* See Experimental Researches, Par. 1295, &c., 1667, &c., and Answer 
to Dr. Hare, Philosophical Magazine, 1840, S, 3. vol. xvii. p. 56. viii. 
