38 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XI. No. 259 



sounds, if they happen to be present. Especially when these loud 

 sounds occur fifty or one hundred or more times per second, the 

 effect is that of a continuous sound ; and as the persistence of hear- 

 ing is something like the tenth of a second, it follows, a priori, that 

 such rates of vibration as from two hundred to a thousand per sec- 

 ond might be present, yet too weak to be heard in the presence of 

 such overpowering sounds that have an appreciable persistent 

 effect. These loud magnetic clicks are heard only when there is a 

 sudden break in the current in the receiver. If, then, some way 

 can be devised for preventing these extraneous sounds in the re- 

 ceiver without interfering at all with the transmitter or its ' mode 

 of operation,' one may e.xperimentally determine whether the Reis 

 transmitter does or does not act mechanically so as to vary the cur- 

 rent in correspondence with speech or other sound-vibrations. I 

 therefore conceived, that, if there was a short-shunt circuit between 

 the terminals of the transmitter, some of the current would traverse 

 the coil of the receiver the whole time, no matter whether the cir- 

 cuit through the transmitter was open or closed. The loud clicks 

 would be suppressd without interfering in any way with the ' mode 

 of operation' of the transmitter; and, if the latter really did follow 

 the motions of the diaphragm, the variations in the current strength 

 would correspond, and the speech would be heard. This I found 

 to be truly the case : for with a transmitter thus provided with a 

 shunt circuit of about two ohms, which could be switched in or 

 out with a key, it was at once possible to hear a large part of what 

 "was spoken when the shunt was in ; when it was out of circuit, the 

 sounds were generally inarticulate. 



This experiment is an experimentuni crucis, and proves that the 

 inefficiency of the Reis telephone is much more due to the extrane- 

 ous sounds in the receiver than to the lack of appropriate motions 

 of the platinum terminals of the transmitter. It proves that the 

 transmitter does and must always have worked in the proper me- 

 chanical way, and that the current theory of its mode of operation 

 is not correct. It proves, too, that when carbon is substituted for 

 the platinum terminals, there is an improvement in efficiency, but not 

 in its mode of operation. A. E. Dolbear. 



College Hill, Mass., Jan. 14. 



Queries. 



23. Drops of Water. — Will some reader of Science explain 

 the floating of drops of water upon the general surface ? It is a 

 very common phenomenon, not to be confused with the formation 

 of bubbles, though often produced by the same sort of agitation ; 

 for example, the breaking of a wave. In still water they may be 

 produced by an oblique blow with an oar or with the hand, but will 

 disappear as soon as their original momentum has been lost. Re- 

 cently on Lake Pontchartrain, with a brisk wind which kept them 

 in motion, I observed some which exceeded an eighth of an inch 

 in diameter, and lasted more than two minutes. The depression, 

 like that of a floating needle, which surrounded each one, was also 

 plainly visible. Their behavior was in striking contrast with that 

 of the bubbles with which they were mingled, the drops moving 

 much more rapidly with the wind, and also rolling under the in- 

 fluence of gravity towards the trough of each successive wave. 



E. J. Pond. 



New Orleans, Jan. g. 



Answers. 



21. Globular Lightning. — The note on globular lightning in 

 the issue of Dec. 30 recalls to mind a phenomenon of the kind I wit- 

 nessed some years ago. While walking upon the Worcester and 

 Norwich Railroad track about a mile south of Worcester Junction, 

 I suddenly saw a ball of fire, or what looked like it, about the size 

 of a large marble, running along on top of one of the rails just 

 ahead of me. It was going at so slow a rate that I could have 

 overtaken it in a few seconds, and my first impulse was to do so ; 

 but the sober second-thought warned me against making the at- 

 tempt. I, however, watched it move until it came to the end of 

 a rail separated from the adjacent one by something like half an 

 inch, when it stopped, and in a second or two vanished, when there 

 was a clap of thunder in a cloud overhead which I had not before 

 noticed as being a thunder-cloud. The brightness of this small 



ball was not excessive, nothing to be compared with an electric arc. 

 It was more like that of a red-hot bullet. It did not scintillate or 

 make any noise, that I noticed. Now, while this was an accom- 

 paniment of a thunder-cloud, as are such manifestations generally, 

 I think there is some reason for not calling the phenomenon itself 

 an electrical one in the same sense as lightning is electrical. If 

 electricity can gather itself up into a spherical form as if it was 

 subject to some sort of cohesion, and if it can roll along on top of 

 a good conductor instead of traversing the body of the conductor 

 subject to Ohm's law, then there are some exceptions to this latter 

 law. Other observers have seen still larger balls roll slowly upon 

 the ground, or move with great deliberation in the air, apparently 

 without exhibiting the property of attraction or repulsion. Some 

 years ago an acquaintance in southern New Hampshire told me 

 that such a fire-ball came down to the ground near his house, and 

 rolled slowly about near where a hog was. The hog walked up to 

 it as if to root it along, and touched it with its snout, when it ex- 

 ploded with a great noise, killing the hog instantly, blowing it to 

 pieces. In this case, and in other similar ones, it appears that the 

 luminosity is not caused by high temperature. Babinet reports a 

 case that he investigated, where a globe of fire came into the room 

 of a tailor who was eating his dinner. It was about the size of a 

 child's head, and moved about upon the floor, approaching his legs 

 as a kitten might have done ; but he prudently drew his feet away, 

 and watched it. It appeared bright, but the tailor said he felt no 

 sensation of warmth. After remaining several seconds upon the 

 floor, it rose vertically five or six feet in the air, and then moved to- 

 wards a pipe-hole in the chimney, which was covered with paper, 

 which it tore off, and went up the chimney. Near the top it ex- 

 ploded, and did considerable damage to the chimney and the roof 

 of the house. Such a performance is entirely unlike electrical 

 phenomena. It exhibits none of the characteristics of electricity, 

 either in form, in motion, in heat, in attraction, and why should it 

 be called an electrical phenomenon ? It is true, in most of the 

 cases reported the disruption of the globe resulted in electrical 

 phenomena, sudden and destructive ; but so would a charged sec- 

 ondary cell, that might have relatively a very large amount of po- 

 tential electricity in it : that is, the stored chemism may be trans- 

 formed into electricity at a very rapid rate, but we do not now con- 

 sider that electricity is stored in the cell, because we can get a 

 large amount of electrical energy out of it. The charged secondary 

 cell is the result of electrical work ; but, so long as the energy is 

 stored in such a way as to manifest none of the properties of elec- 

 tricity, it is improper to speak of it as other than chemism. In like 

 manner, if energy be stored in such a globular form as is called 

 ■globular lightning,' which does not exhibit any of the properties of 

 electrical energy, it seems to me that we are not justified in calling 

 it an electrical phenomenon. We have in physics already too many 

 ex post facto terms, such as ' heat ' rays, ' light ' rays, and ' actinic ' 

 rays ; and it is a pity to caU this ' globular lightning ' if the only ap- 

 propriate part of the name is 'globular.' If we don't know what 

 specific form the energy exists in, we know that it is globular energy ; 

 and 'globular vim' would be better than 'globular lightning.' 



A. E. Dolbear. 



College Hill, Mass., Jan. 12. 



22. Wasp-Stings. — In answer to Mr. Ames's query in Science 

 for Jan. 13, I will say that I have picked up hundreds of lively 

 wasps, holding my breath at the moment when the wasp was 

 grasped, and have never been stung under such circumstances. I 

 have frequently been stung by wasps when I have disturbed them 

 unawares, which shows that there is nothing in my make-up which 

 would prevent wasps from stinging me if they had the power and 

 were so disposed. I have captured a dozen wasps, one after the 

 other, until I had a handful, which I have held as long as I chose, 

 without receiving a single sting. I cannot say that I would have 

 been stung had I not held my breath at the moment of contact with 

 the wasps, but can only testify that I was not stung in a single in- 

 stance when I did hold my breath. As to the explanation of the 

 phenomenon, I have none to give. I have tried the experiment on 

 hornets, honey-bees, and bumblebees, and a single trial with each 

 was sufficient to prove that the plan did not work with either of 

 these species. Fayette Safford. 



Willimantic, Conn., Jan. 16. 



