152 DR. franklin's discovery. 



LESSON 68. 



Electricity {continued.) 

 A quoous, watery. Collapse', to fall together. 



The Ley den phial is a glass jar coated with tin foil on the 

 inside and outside within about three inches of the top of 

 its cylindrical part, and having a wire with a brass ball at its 

 extremity. This wire passes through a cork or piece of 

 wood, and at its lower extremity is a small chain, or wire, 

 that touches the inside coating in several places, and serves 

 as a conductor to charge the jar with electric fluid. On 

 bringing the ball of the jar near the prime conductor, after 

 a few turns of the machine, tlie jar will be charged. The 

 discharging rod consists of two brass balls attached to the 

 ends ©f a wire, bent in the form of a semicircle, and fixed 

 to a glass handle. When one of the balls of the discharg- 

 ing rod is applied to the ball of the jar, and the other to the 

 outside coating, a communication is made between the out- 

 side and inside of the jar, by which the equilibrium is in- 

 stantly restored by the superabundant electricity passing 

 from one side to the other, appearing in the form of a vivid 

 flash, and accompanied with a loud report. Any number of 

 persons may receive the shock together by laying hold of 

 each other's hands, the person at one end touching the out- 

 side of the jar, and the person at tlie other end bringing his 

 hand near the ball of the jar. If there were a hundred per- 

 sons so situated, they would every one feci the shock at the 

 same instant. The electric fluid mny be thus conveyed 

 many miles in a moment of time. When great force is re- 

 quired from the electric fluid, a number of jars of the above 

 description are connected together by making a communi- 

 cation between all their outsides, and another between all 

 their insides. In this manner any number of jars may be 

 charged with the same facility as a single one, and from the 

 powerful effect of the electric fluid, when it is thus collect- 

 ed, it is called an electrical battery. 



The Leyden phial received its name from the birth-place 

 of the discoverer, who was a native of Leyden in Holland. 

 But the greatest discovery that was ever made in electricity 

 was reserved for Dr. Franklin, in America. It had been 



