NO ABSOLUTE CHARGE OF MATTER — ALL INDUCTIVE. 5 



vessels, there were at first some appearances as if the fluid did receive an absolute 

 charge of electricity from the charging wire, but these were quickly reduced to cases 

 of common induction jointly through the fluid, the glass, and the surrounding air. 



11/3. I carried these experiments on with air to a very great extent. I had a 

 chamber built, being a cube of twelve feet in the side. A slight cubical wooden 

 frame was constructed, and copper wire passed along and across it in various direc- 

 tions, so as to make the sides a large net-work, and then all was covered in with 

 paper, placed in close connection with the wires, and supplied in every direction with 

 bands of tin foil, that the whole might be brought into good metallic communication, 

 and rendered a free conductor in every part. This chamber was insulated in the 

 lecture-room of the Royal Institution; a glass tube above six feet in length was 

 passed through its side, leaving about four feet within and two feet on the outside, 

 and through this a wire passed from the large electrical machine (290.) to the air 

 within. By working the machine, the air within this chamber could be brought into 

 what is considered a highly electrified state (being, in fact, the same state as that of 

 the air of a room in which a powerful machine is in operation), and at the same time 

 the outside of the insulated cube was everywhere strongly charged. But putting the 

 chamber in communication with the perfect discharging train described in a former 

 series (292.), and working the machine so as to bring the air within to its utmost 

 degree of charge, if I quickly cut off" the connexion with the machine, and at the 

 same moment or instantly after insulated the cube, the air within had not the 

 least power to communicate a further charge to it. If any portion of the air was 

 electrified, as glass or other insulators may be charged (1171.)? it was accompanied 

 by a corresponding opposite action within the cube, the whole effect being merely a 

 case of induction. Every attempt to charge air bodily and independently with the 

 least portion of either electricity failed. 



1174. I put a delicate gold-leaf electrometer within the cube, and then charged 

 the whole by an outside communication, very strongly, for some time together ; but 

 neither during the charge or after the discharge did the electrometer or air within 

 show the least signs of electricity. I charged and discharged the whole arrangement 

 in various ways, but in no case could I obtain the least indication of an absolute 

 charge ; or of one by induction in which the electricity of one kind had the smallest 

 superiority in quantity over the other. I went into the cube and lived in it, and 

 using lighted candles, electrometers, and all other tests of electrical states, I could 

 not find the least influence upon them, or indication of anything particular given by 

 them, though all the time the outside of the cube was powerfully charged, and large 

 sparks and brushes were darting off from every part of its outer surface. The con- 

 clusion I have come to is, that non-conductors, as well as conductors, have never yet 

 had an absolute and independent charge of one electricity communicated to them, 

 and that to all appearance such a state of matter is impossible. 



1175. There is another view of this question which may be taken under the sup- 



