16 Mr. 0. J. Lodge. Experiments on [June 4, 



The damping effect of resistance no doubt partly comes in here as 

 helping to account for the evil of unnecessarily long connecting wires ; 

 and no fine adjustment of length has been found necessary to bring 

 out in a marked manner the surging effects. 



If any experimenter should fail to obtain these conspicuously, he 

 probably has his connectors too short or too long. It is advantage- 

 ous, though not essential, to have the long wire insulated. It is 

 essential to have it highly conducting. Iron is for these purposes by 

 far the worst conducting metal, because it is magnetically throttled 



Another small point is that good contacts aid in causing overflow ; 

 especially when the connecting wires are not long enough. Insigni- 

 ficant air spaces suffice to damp out some of the vigour of the sub- 

 sidiary oscillation to which these effects seem due. With long 

 massive leads, however, good joints are not of so much consequence. 



(Parenthetically it may be remarked how well adapted the usual 

 orthodox lightning conductor is to develop violent surging and 

 splashing effects.) 



Further Over/low and Surging Circuit Experiments. 



18. Two jars standing side by side, and connected in parallel by 

 long wires to the machine, sometimes both overflowed. Sparks 

 taken at the jar knobs with ordinary discharging tongs had no such 

 effect. 



The tongs were sometimes arranged over the lip of a jar, so as to 

 help its overflow if possible ; but it was not easy to do this. Near 

 the edge of each coating they had the best chance, but the splash 

 usually preferred an immense jump through air over a glass surface 

 to a much smaller jump through the discharging tongs. Overflow is 

 evidently a very quick effect, and must occur in a hurry or not at 

 all. 



A couple of jars standing side by side on the same metal plate had 

 a gap between their knobs as shown in fig. 7, and one of them was 

 connected by long leads to the machine. It now often sparked across 

 C into the second jar when an A spark occurred. . But the second jar 

 was not thereby charged. The charge just sprang into it and out 

 again. 



Connector without Self-induction. 



19. Connected up a jar to the machine with a special anti-induction 

 zigzag of tinfoil, folded to and fro in twenty long layers with several 

 thicknesses of paraffin paper between. Could detect no effect on the 

 jar overflow. It acted like a simple short circuit. 



Tried, on the other hand, a high inductance coil, viz., the gutta- 

 percha-covered bobbin of a Wiedemann galvanometer, with an iron- 



