THE 
LONDON, EDINBURGH anv DUBLIN 
PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 
AND 
JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
[FOURTH SERIES.] 
AUGUST 1857. 
IX. Researches in Statical Electricity. 
By Sir W. Snow Harris, F.R.S.* 
[With a Plate. | 
Naik 
1, Phznomena of an electrified hollow globe, and the general nature of 
electrical charge. 
2. On the indications of the proof-plane. 
3. On Coulomb’s experiment with a hollow globe and circular plate of 
twice the diameter of the globe. 
4, Empirical expression representing the electrical charge of insulated 
conductors. 
be p> my paper on some elementary laws of electricity, ho- 
noured by a place in the Transactions of the Royal 
Society for 1836, I ventured to call attention to certain pheeno- 
mena of the proof-plane commonly employed to determine the 
electrical distribution in different points of a charged conductor. 
This question has recently again engaged my attention; I have 
been hence led to further investigate the general nature and 
operation of statical electrical force. In the course of my several 
inquiries certain facts have presented themselves, calculated, 
as it appears to me, to materially affect our views of elec- 
trical action. In order, however, to make these inquiries, as 
submitted in this present communication, clear and intelligible, 
it is desirable for me to briefly treat the question, as it were, 
ab initio in all its general elementary detail, so as to complete 
that continuous chain of reasoning requisite to the full develop- 
ment of every sound philosophical inquiry,—a privilege which 
will, I trust, be freely granted me. 
* Communicated by the Author. 
Phil, Mag. 8. 4, Vol. 14, No. 91, Aug. 1857, G 
