PROGRESS IN ELECTRICITY 



these devices he found that he could retain the ch 

 of electricity for several hours, and could produce the 

 usual electrical manifestations, even to igniting spirits, 

 quite as well as with the frictional machine. These 

 experiments were first made in October, 1745, and after 

 a month of further experimenting, Von Kleist sent the 

 following account of them to several of the leading 

 scientists, among others, Dr. Lieberkuhn, in Berlin, 

 and Dr. Kriiger, of Halle. 



"When a nail, or a piece of thick brass wire, is put 

 into a small apothecary's phial and electrified, re- 

 markable effects follow; but the phial must be very 

 dry, or warm. I commonly rub it over beforehand 

 with a finger on which I put some pounded chalk. If 

 a little mercury or a few drops of spirit of wine be put 

 into it, the experiment succeeds better. As soon as 

 this phial and nail are removed from the electrifying- 

 glass, or the prime conductor, to which it has been ex- 

 posed, is taken away, it throws out a pencil of flame 

 so long that, with this burning machine in my hand, 

 I have taken above sixty steps in walking about my 

 room. When it is electrified strongly, I can take it 

 into another room and there fire spirits of wine with it. 

 If while it is electrifying I put my finger, or a piece of 

 gold which I hold in my hand, to the nail, I receive a 

 shock which stuns my arms and shoulders. 



"A tin tube, or a man, placed upon electrics, is 

 electrified much stronger by this means than in the 

 common way. When I present this phial and nail to a 

 tin tube, which I have, fifteen feet long, nothing but 

 experience can make a person believe how strongly it 

 is electrified. I am persuaded," he adds, " that in this 



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