ELECTROMETE R ELEG Y. 



837 



or the magnet be inverted, the direction of the 

 wheel's motion will be changed. 



In Fig. 18, there is shown a contrivance for exhi- 

 biting the rotation of a galvanic wire and magnet, an 

 invention which is due to Mr Faraday, b b is a cup 

 supported on the stand, a a, and filled with mercury, 

 partially immersed, on which is a magnet loaded at 

 the bottom, e, with platina, in order to keep it ver- 

 tical. This magnet is connected with a wire, c c, 

 having a cup of mercury, d, as the vertex, and 

 the lower extremities immersed in the mercury in the 

 cup, I b. The ends of the wire are connected with 

 the magnet by means of thin pasteboard. The mer- 

 cury in the cup, b 6, is made to communicate with the 

 mercury in the cup,/, by means of a connecting wire, 

 and one end of the battery being brought into con- 

 tact with the one cup, and the other end with the 

 other, the wire c c, with the magnet, will revolve 

 with great rapidity. A series of. wires will do the 

 same, having all the same axis of motion, and a 

 cylinder made of thin sheet copper, which may be con- 

 sidered as a series of wires, will also revolve. 



But a galvanic wire may be made to rotate with- 

 out the action of the battery, as may be shown by the 

 elegant contrivance of Mr Marsh, a, fig. 19, is a 

 thin copper sheet cylinder, about g inches in dia- 

 meter and the same in height. It envelopes another 

 of smaller diameter, and of the same material which 

 is soldered to it at the bottom. Between these two 

 cylinders, is a third one, of zinc, reaching nearly to the 

 bottom, and suspended by the wires c, c, which have 

 a steel point at the top resting on an agate centre, so 

 that the zinc cylinder has a free motion round its 

 axis. The inner copper cylinder is suspended in a 

 like manner, from a centre a little below the former, so 

 that the two copper cylinders have also free motion 

 round their axes. They are supported by a strong 

 cylindrical magnet, b, which passes up through the 

 interior copper cylinder. If now diluted nitric acid, 

 be poured between the cylinders, they will immed- 

 iately begin to revolve, the copper ones in one direc- 

 tion, and the zinc one in another. 



Farther particulars regarding this interesting 

 branch of physical science, will be given in our arti- 

 cles Galvanism and Magnetism. 



ELECTROMETER. See Electricity. 

 ELECTROPHORUS. See Electricity. 

 ELECTRO-STATICS; the science which treats 

 of electricity in equilibria, as distinguished from elec- 

 tro-dynamics, which relates to the effects of elec- 

 tricity in motion through a continued system of 

 conductors. For the principal facts belonging to 

 electro-statics, see Electricity. 



ELECTRUM, (Lat. ; faixT e <, Greek), according 

 to Ovid, was that resinous substance now called 

 amber (q. v.) ; also, according to Pliny (lib. 30, cap. 

 4), a mixture of gold and silver, of which the fifth 

 part was silver : he.observes that it was more brilliant 

 than pure gold. According to other ancient writers, 

 three varieties of substances called electrum were 

 used in the arts ; namely, glass, a compound metal, 

 and succinum. In the Homeric poems, electrum is 

 often mentioned, which seems to have been suc- 

 cinum, the yellow or white amber. According to 

 Eustathius, the ancients used sometimes to call gold 

 by this name, probably from its brilliancy, the word 

 jAixra/j, signifying the sun. Pliny thinks that the 

 compound metal or alloy mentioned above is the 

 same that Homer mentions in the fourth book of 

 the Odyssey, in describing the palace of Mene- 

 laus, which he says was ornamented with gold, 

 (>?Xt*T{v), silver and ivory. But there is reason to 

 believe, says Millin, that if the electrum of Homer 

 was a metallic alloy or compound metal, Homer 

 would not have omitted it in his description of the 



shield of Achilles. It is more probable that electrum 

 was yellow amber, which has a resplendent, sunny 

 brilliancy, according with its Greek name ; and 

 Herodotus mentions that succinum or amber was 

 known to the ancients. Pliny's account of the 

 compound metal of gold with a fifth part of silver, 

 which he calls electrum, is corroborated by Isidorus, 

 except in respect to the quantities; the latter giving 

 two parts of gold to one of silver to his electrum. 

 There are many ancient coins of this rich alloy, the 

 principal of which are some of the kings of Bospho- 

 rus, some small ones of Syracuse, and many Celtic 

 and of ancient Gaul. Gold alloyed with silver was 

 called electrum ; with copper, auric/talcum or dial- 

 colibanos. 



ELEEMOSYNARY CORPORATION. An 

 eleemosynary corporation is a charity constituted 

 for the perpetual distribution of the alms and bounty 

 of the founder. In this class are ranked hospitals for 

 the relief of poor, sick, and impotent persons, and 

 colleges and academies established for the promotion 

 of learning and piety, and endowed with property by 

 public or private donations. They are either public 

 or private. Thus an hospital created and endowed 

 by the government, for its own purposes, and exclu- 

 sively owned by the government, is a public corpo- 

 ration, but an hospital founded by a private bene- 

 factor, is, in point of law, a private corpora- 

 tion, though dedicated by its charter to general 

 charity. A college founded and endowed in the 

 same manner is a private charity ; though, from its 

 general objects, it may acquire the character of a 

 public institution. A mere act of incorporation will 

 not change a charity from a private to a public one. 

 To make a public charity, it is essential that the 

 express object of its creation be of a public charac- 

 ter. A charity may be public, though administered 

 by a private corporation, Thus a devise for the 

 benefit of the poor of a parish, is a public charity. 

 The charity of almost every hospital and college is 

 public, while the corporations are private. 



ELEGY ; commonly a mournful and plaintive 

 poem, as is implied by the signification of the Greek 

 name. It signifies to cry alas ! alas / (E ! E ! Xey/v). 

 But the Greeks and Romans had elegies, which were 

 so called only from the measure of the verse, and 

 were on various subjects. The elegiac measure of 

 the ancients was the distich (q. v.), consisting of 

 the manly hexameter, alternating with the deli- 

 cate pentameter. In this verse, not only sorrow 

 breathes soft lamentations, but joy and love pour 

 themselves forth in its flowing numbers. Even the 

 war -songs of Tyrtaeus and Callinus were in elegiac 

 verse, as were also the didactic and heroic poems 

 and moral maxims of the ancients. A historical ex- 

 amination will best show how plaintive melancholy 

 came to be the characteristic of this sort of verse. 

 We must first go back to the origin of the pentame- 

 ter. In the first volume of Wieland's Attic Mus- 

 eum, it is proved by Bottiger, that the pentameter 

 verse arose from the use of the military Lydian flute. 

 The oldest poets, who composed in this measure, 

 confined it to warlike songs. The, second period of 

 the pentameter begins with Mimnermus of Colophon, 

 who, in the spirit of his effeminate age, breathed 

 soft feelings into his flute and his pentameters, and 

 sung love elegies to Nanno. He was, therefore, re- 

 garded by antiquity as the founder of the tender and 

 complaining elegy. With Simonides begins the 

 third period ; as the distich was his favourite mea- 

 sure for epitaphs and inscriptions on tombs, a little 

 poem of this sort was called an elegy. The distich, 

 however, was never used exclusively for mournful 

 poems, and hence it is well to distinguish poems in 

 elegiac verse from elegy itself. Among the modem 



