Mr. Faraday on Static Electrical Inductive Action. 201 
tion of C is entirely exerted upon the interior of A, and not 
in any degree directly upon external objects. If C be made 
to touch the bottom of A, all its charge is communicated to 
A; there is no longer any inductive action between C and A, 
and C, upon being withdrawn and examined, is found per- 
fectly discharged. 
These are all well-known and recognised actions, but being 
a tittle varied, the following conclusions may be drawn from 
them. If C be merely suspended in A, it acts upon it by in- 
duction, evolving electricity of its own kind on the outside of 
A; but if C touch A its electricity is then communicated to it, 
and the electricity that is afterwards upon the outside of A 
may be considered as that which was originally upon the car- 
rier C. As this change, however, produces no effect upon 
the leaves of the electrometer, it proves that the electricity in- 
duced by C and the electricity z C are accurately equal in 
amount and power. 
Again, if C charged be held equidistant from the bottom 
and sides of A at one moment, and at another be held as close 
to the bottom as possible without discharging to A, still the 
divergence remains absolutely unchanged, showing that whe- 
ther C acts at a considerable distance or at the very smallest 
distance, the amount of its force is the same. So also if it be 
held excentric and near to the side of the ice-pail in one place, 
so as to make the inductive action take place in lines express- 
ing almost every degree of force in 
different directions, still the sum 
of their forces is the same con- 
stant quantity as that obtained 
before ; for the leaves alter not. 
Nothing like expansion or co- 
ercion of the electric force ap- 
pears under these varying circum- 
stances. 12 
I can now describe experiments 
with many concentric metallic ves- 
sels arranged as in the diagram, 
where four ice-pails are represent- 
ed insulated from each other by 
plates of shell-lac on which they 
respectively stand. With this sy- 
stem the charged carrier C acts 
precisely as with the single vessel, 
so that the intervention of many 
conducting plates causes no dif- 
ference in the amount of inductive 
MEDD 
COLL 
