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XLIV. FtirtJier Bemarks on some of tJie Circumstances under 

 'which Steam developes Electricity. By Dr. Charles 



SCHAFHAEUTL*. 



TJ Y repeating the experiments described in the February 

 ■^ Number of the Philosophical Magazine, p. 95, of holding 

 the glass bell against the jet of wet steam, it frequently happened 

 that the water dropping down from the edges of the bell flowed 

 in a continuous stream, and served as a conductor for the elec- 

 tricity developed within it. 



In order to obviate this, I substituted for the short me- 

 tallic jet (the opening of which must never be smaller than 

 one- sixteenth of an inch in diameter) a flexible leaden tube about 

 ten inches long, with its upper end bent downwards at an 

 angle of about S0°. Now in consequence of this arrangement 

 I was enabled to place the glass bell, with its mouth upwards, 

 simply upon a small ring on the table under the opening of 

 the jet, and the bell served not only as a receiver for the 

 steam, but likewise for the separating water. 



By this arrangement an objection is removed, which might 

 have arisen in respect to my former experiments, viz. Whether 

 the observed electricity did not arise from the friction of the 

 escaping minutely divided "water during its striking against the 

 glass bell? 



Now in this experiment the development of electricity is 

 the same, whether the issuing steam jet strikes against the 

 glass, or touches only the surface of the water, which is col- 

 lecting in it during repeated experiments ; neither the distance 

 of the mouth of the jet from the glass or the water surface made 

 the slightest difference in the quantity of the liberated elec- 

 tricity, a proof not only that the cause of the electricity is not 

 to be ascribed to friction, but likewise that a sheet of water 

 exerts the same condensing power in respect to wet steam as 

 the solid glass. 



The fact already mentioned, tliat the inside of the glass 

 bell, when discharged, begins slightly, and often repeatedly, to 

 recharge itself again after the steam has ceased to flow, excludes 

 all possibility of explaining the pha^nomenon by means of 

 friction, but the electricity observed in this way might be 

 ascribed possibly simply to evaporation still going on in the 

 bell in some degree after the steam has been stojiped, I there- 

 fore frequently poured boiling water into the glass bell, and 

 brought it into connexion with the electroscope; but neither 

 tlie water nor the steam ascending in clouds from the surface 



* Communicated by the Author. 



