304 ELECTRICITY. 



mouth A, a cork is fitted, and a perforated piece of 

 brass e screws on the bottom of the pistol, having 

 a glass tube with a wire cemented into it, bent 

 over the glass tube, so as to reacli within one- 

 eighth of an inch of the brass. When this pistol is 

 charged with inflammable air mixed with common 

 air, by applying a small charged Leyden phial to 

 the knob, it will explode with a report like gun- 

 powder, and drive out the cork to a considerable 

 distance. To load it with inflammable air, nothing 

 more is necessary than to hold it inverted, with 

 its mouth open, over a bottle containing that air: 

 the inflammable air will ascend into the pistol, 

 while the common air descends into the bottle. 

 The method of making the inflammable air will be 

 found under Chemistry, in vol. ii. 



The Electrified Capillary Syphon. 



Let a small bucket of metal, full of water, be 

 suspended from the prime conductor, and put in it 

 a glass syphon (Fig. 3.), of so narrow extremity as 

 that the water will just drop from it. If, in this 

 disposition of the apparatus, the winch of the ma- 

 chine be turned, the water which, when not elec- 

 trified, only dropped from the extremity of the 

 syphon, will now run in a full stream, which will 

 even be subdivided into other smaller streams; and 

 if the experiment be made in the dark, it will be 

 beautifully illuminated like a fountain with streams 

 of fire, which may be made' to stop apparently by 

 the word of command, by touching the prime 

 conductor. 



