520 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



stand on the floor, and must either hold the jar in one hand 

 and excite sparks with the other, or he may place the jar 

 on a piece of metal on a table, and touch the metal with 

 his hand, bringing a finger of the other hand to the wire. 

 Of course this experiment is the same as that of Von 

 Kleist, and goes further, for it eliminates the necessity of 

 supporting the vessel in the hand, while making it clear 

 that the seat of the effect is not in the body, as Von Kleist 



THE I<EYDEN EXPERIMENT. 1 



supposed, and as the Dantzic philosophers evidently re- 

 fused to suppose, but in the apparatus, and that when 

 one hand touches the wire which enters the jar (and ex- 

 tends down into the water therein), and the other hand 

 touches the metal plate on which the jar rests, a path for 

 the discharge is made through the body of the operator. 



1 Reproduced in reduced facsimile from Winkler's Die Starke der 

 Electrischen Kraft des Wassers in glasernen Gefassen. Leipsic, 1746. 



