VOL. XLI.] I'HILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 353 



place joined to the cat-gut, so as to hang down a foot at one end ; then ap- 

 plying the rubbed tube at the other end, this conductor carried the electricity 

 along to the ball ; but not so well as the packthread conductor ; but it did some- 

 thing better when it was wet. 



The same happened when the conductor was brass wire of the same length. 



The packthread conductor also carried the effluvia stronger when wet. 



An Account of some Electrical Experiments made before the Royal Society on 

 Thursday the \6th February, 1737-8. By the Same. N° 454, p. 200. 



Exper. 1. — I took the glass tube ab of two inches diameter, fig. l, plate 8, 

 which had at one end a, a brass ferril with a brim cemented to it, and at the 

 other end b, a brass cap close at top, the brass-work being joined to it, in 

 order to exhaust it of its air on occasion. When this tube was very dry it 

 would become electrical by rubbing, so as to snap by passing the ends of the 

 fingers near it ; but that virtue could not be excited in the tube nearer the 

 brass at the ends than from a to b, and not unless the tube was very dry 

 within. 



The tube being thus prepared, and having an ivory ball c of about 2 inches 

 diameter, tied to it at the end b by a short string, I passed the tube through 

 the horizontally suspended place dd, till it was stopped by the brim at a ; and 

 as il hung perpendicularly, the ball c was within a foot and a half of the floor. 

 The plate dd was about 10 inches in diameter, and suspended by 3 small cat- 

 gut strings, as e e, of about 2 feet in length, all which were tied together at 

 B, to a hempen string hanging from the cieling at p. 



By reason of the distance of the ends of the cat-gut strings close to the plate 

 ateee, I was able to thrust in between them one end of an open tube gg, 

 after it had been rubbed so as to make it electricul, to see whether I could 

 make the aforesaid suspended tube ab the conductor of electricity to the ball c; 

 but the first trial was in vain. 



Exper. 2. Then laying horizontally over the plate dd an iron bar, a quarter 

 of an inch thick, and a yard long, I hung at the ends of it two ivory balls c, c, 

 of the same size as c, by packthreads of the same length at the tube ab. 



Having again made the tube gg electrical, I applied it over a, as before, and 

 immediately the two balls c, c, received the electricity, so as to attract the 

 thread of trial t, hanging at the end of the stick sx, when applied near 

 them ; though it received no motion when applied to c. But if the strings 

 H c, instead of packthread, were cat-gut, then the balls c, c, received no 

 electricity from the tube gg, rubbed and applied over a 



VOL. VIII. Z z 



