THE DISCOVERY OF ELECTRICAL CONDUCTION. 399 



globe above the feather, the latter "inverts itself in the 

 air and views the globe always with the same face." Von 

 Guericke stops here to suggest that "it is from the same 

 cause that the moon always turns the same face toward the 

 earth, and doubtless in the orb of the earth's virtue is thus 

 repelled by it and there held." Then continuing: "if 

 the feather begins to unfold its pinnules on the globe and 

 you extend your finger or something else to it, it will fly 

 to it and recede toward the globe, and repeat this several 

 times; but if you present a linen thread to the feather, all 

 its pinnules are straightway attached to the globe, and 

 thus attached lie for quite a while as if dead, until they 

 again erect and extend themselves. In the same manner 

 this feather shows the fire to such an extent that if it thus 

 unfolds itself and the flame of the candle is moved up to 

 it, the feather throws itself back upon the globe." 



"If the globe is suspended on its axis in the apparatus 

 in such a manner that it can turn, and be excited by the 

 palm in the accustomed manner, and a rather soft feather 

 is placed beneath, the globe will then attract the feather 

 many times and drive it around away from itself into the 

 nearest place underneath itself, and continue this for some 

 hours." Thus the feather is alternately charged and dis- 

 charged and so kept in vibration. Von Guericke finds in 

 this proof of the animate nature of the globe. "When it 

 does not want to attract," he says, "it does not attract." 

 Nor does it "allow the feather to approach until it has 

 cast it against something else, perhaps in order that it 

 may acquire something therefrom." 



Now comes the announcement of a discovery of the 

 highest import. Gilbert had seen a rod, rendered magnetic 

 at one end, become magnetic at the other; but no one had 

 observed any transference of the supposed electric effluvia 

 except from the surface of the electric to the limits of the 

 orb or sphere of virtue. Von Guericke now, for the first 

 time, makes known electrical conduction the transfer- 

 ence of electrification from an electrified body to one not 



