a64 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I746. 



lowing a due proportion to the frame, on which the glass spheroid is mounted, 

 that it may answer to the wheel that turns it. 



The whole machine is mounted on a floor of boards, wheel, frame, glass, &c. 

 and employs 2 men, the one to turn the wheel, the other to sit behind the 

 glass spheroid, and apply the concave of each hand to its lower convex surface ; 

 for it is by.this friction that the electricity is excited. 



When the electrifying glass has been some little time in motion, the person 

 who desires to be electrified, applies the extremities of the nails of one hand, and 

 stands not upon cakes of wax, as in England, but within the area of a square 

 drawer or box about 5 inches deep, and tilled with 5 parts pitch, 4 of resin, and 

 1 of bees-wax . they are not mixed, but disposed in the following manner ; the 

 pitch is placed next to the sides of the box, and rises almost to a level with them, 

 the resin in the middle is level with the pitch, and the wax forms a thin sur- 

 face, covering both to a level with the box itself; probably, however, this is 

 in itself very indifferent, and that any one body of the electrics per se would 

 answer equally. 



Exper. 1 . — ^The person electrified by this machine not only emits fire from" all 

 parts of his body, on the touch of another, with more vigour, and in a much 

 more sensible manner, than when electrified by a common tube ; but fires also 

 spirits of wine with such ease, that when the spirits have been once but simply 

 set on fire by a match or paper lighted, and the flame has been instantly blown 

 out, they will, with that small degree of heat they have acquired, take fire on 

 his touch 10 or 20 times successively, without failing once. 



Exper. 2. — If the person electrified holds a sword in one hand, the chamber 

 being darkened, a contirmal flame issues out at the point, in smell and colour 

 resembling the fiimes of phosphorus, and nearly as strong as that of an enameiler's 

 lamp : with this difference, that when any other of the company applies a hand, 

 even to the point, where the concentrated rays begin to diverge, it burns not, 

 nor is any otherwise sensible to the feeling, than as a continual blast of wind. 



Exper. 3. — ^This is performed with a square bar of iron, about 4 feet in 

 length, and half an inch in thickness ; to one extremity of which is adapted, by 

 the help of a screw, another piece of iron beat flat, like the end of one of the 

 legs of a pair of tongs. This flat piece of iron being screwed in, the bar is 

 placed parallel to the horizon on a wooden stand, and the stand within the area 

 of the drawer or box, upon the pitch, resin, and bees-wax, as above. The opera- 

 tor orders the bar to be electrified by repeated revolutions of the glass spheroid, as 

 above ; and places one finger on the middle of the bar, to prevent the commu- 

 nication of the electricity from one end to the other, till he has covered the flat 

 piece of iron with as much saw-dust as it will carry. Some of the company, in 



