Electricity. 101 



mentioning his disappointment to a friend, it 

 was suggested, that the cord which he employed 

 for the loop, through which the pac-kthf^cl rah, 

 might be so coarse as to intercept the electric 

 power. To remedy this, they made , the hWp of 

 silk, which they considered as stronger, in pro- 

 portion to its thickness, than the former. . With 

 this apparatus they succeeded beyond expectation. 

 As they attributed their success entirely to the 

 fineness of the silk of which the loop was made, 

 they thought they would perform still better by 

 supporting the packthread by a very fine brass or 

 iron wire ; but to their utter astonishment, the 

 electric virtue was entirely lost; while, on the 

 contrary, when the apparatus was supported 

 by the silk loops, they were able to convey the 

 power of attraction along a packthread of seven 

 hundred and sixty-five feet in length. It was 

 evident, therefore, that these effects depended 

 upon some quality in the silk, which disabled it 

 from conducting away the electric power, as the 

 hempen cord and the wire had done; and, 

 by subsequent experiments, this hypothesis was 

 amply confirmed. 



This little narrative may serve to give a tole- 

 rably competent idea of non-conducting and con- 

 ducting bodies; and we must remember, that 

 those bodies which do not conduct the electric 

 fluid are most capable of exciting it, and are sup- 

 posed to be naturally charged or loaded with a 

 quantity of it. They have, therefore, been called 



