DISTRIBUTION UPON CONDUCTORS DENSITY. 587 



Qmm 

 O 



thick and 40 cm long, having one end pointed while 

 the other is bent into a ring of 2 CIU diameter, into the 

 horizontal tube of the brass conductor, the pointed end 

 of the wire being within. The whole is fixed in the 

 conductor by pushing the wire through two small bits 

 of cork which are cut so as to fit easily into the tube. 



When the conductor is now charged by a rubbed 

 glass rod, and the electricity of the ball and ring 

 separately tested, the charge of the ring will be found 

 to be stronger, for the divergence of the gold leaves is 

 greater when the proof-plane is charged by contact with 

 the ring than it is when charged from the surface of the 

 ball. 



The total quantity of electricity on the ball is much 

 greater than that upon the ring, but the former has a 

 larger space over which it can diffuse itself and is 

 therefore less squeezed together than the electricity of 

 the ring, which although small in quantity is strongly 

 repelled towards the extremity of the ring by the 

 large quantity of electricity, on the ball, hence the elec- 

 tricity of the ring is much more crowded, and possesses 

 a greater ' density/ The denser the electricity, the 

 greater the mutual repulsion, and hence the greater 

 becomes the tendency to escape, that is, the tension. 

 It follows that on touching the ring with the proof- 

 plane more electricity passes into the latter than when 

 it touches the ball. 



In general, in an elongated conductor the electricity 

 is repelled most strongly towards the extremities and 

 manifests there the greatest tension. If one extremity 

 is more pointed than the other, as in the case of the ring 

 and the ball, the tension is greater at the sharper end, 



