558 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



be produced therein, at the same time, a plenum which 

 " presses violently to expand, and the hungry vacuum 

 (which) seems to attract as violently in order to be filled." 

 He had theorized about it: so had Watson and everybody 

 else since the jar had been discovered: just as the world 

 had theorized about the amber before Gilbert; just as the 

 world always finds it so much easier to explain Nature's 

 workings by the vibration of its own brain molecules than 

 to let the workings explain themselves. Where is the 

 charge in the Ley den jar? In the man who holds it, said 

 Von Kleist. In the water, said Musschenbroeck. In 

 the inner conducting coating, said Watson and so on. 

 Franklin proceeded to pull the jar to pieces. 



First. He put it on glass, so that the charge could not 

 run away during the dissection. Then he pulled out the 

 cork and the inserted wire, and taking the bottle in one 

 hand, put a finger of the other near the water within. A 

 spark passed. Therefore the cork and wire had nothing 

 to do with the matter. 



Second. He recharged the bottle, put it again on glass, 

 drew out cork and wire and poured out the water into 

 another jar, also standing on glass. Now, if the charge 

 was in the water, that second jar should give a shock. It 

 did not. There was no electricity in the water at all. It 

 must either have been lost by decanting, or must still 

 remain in the first jar. If it was in the latter, the jar 

 should give its shock when fresh water was poured into it. 

 He poured some in "out of a tea-pot." The jar worked 

 perfectly. So the water had nothing whatever to do with 

 the matter, and the charge must be either in the glass or in 

 the outer coating of the jar (either the hand or lead foil), 

 for the simple reason that there were no other parts of the 

 apparatus left. 



Third. He laid a pane of glass flat on his hand, and 

 put a lead plate on it: the glass, like the wall of the jar, 

 now stood between two conducting layers hand and lead. 

 He electrified it, and got a shock on touching the lead 

 plate. The form of the jar was therefore immaterial. 



