490 Mr. C. V. Boys on the Production, Properties, 



clothing boilers, &c. ; but in each of these cases the fibres are 

 matted together, they are not adapted to the requirements of a 

 Physical Laboratory. By drawing out glass softened by heat 

 by a wheel we obtain the well-known spun glass. 



There is a process by which threads may be made which is 

 natural in that natural forces only are employed, and the thread 

 is not in any way touched during its production. This is the 

 old, but now apparently little-known experiment of electrical 

 spinning. If a small dish be insulated and connected with an 

 electrical machine and filled with melted rosin, beeswax, pitch, 

 shellac, sealing-wax, Canada balsam, guttapercha, burnt india- 

 rubber, collodion, or any other viscous material, the contents 

 will, if they reach one edge of the dish, at once be shot out in 

 the most extraordinary way in one, two, or it may be a dozen 

 threads of extreme tenuity, travelling at a high speed along 

 " lines of force." If the material is very hot, the liquid 

 cylinders shot out are unstable and break into beads, which 

 rattle like hail on a sheet of paper a few feet off. As the 

 material cools, the beads each begin to carry long slender 

 tails, and at last these tails unite the beads in twos and threes ; 

 but the distance between the beads is far greater than that 

 due to the natural breaking of a cylinder into spheres, as 

 after the first deformation of the surface occurs which deter- 

 mines the ultimate spheres the repulsive force along the thread 

 continues, and drags them apart many times their natural 

 distance. As the temperature continues to fall and the 

 material to become more viscid, the beads become less 

 spherical, and the tails less slender, and at last a perfectly 

 uniform cylindrical thread is formed. If sealing-wax is 

 employed, and a sheet of paper laid for it to fall on, the paper 

 becomes suffused in time with a delicate rosy shade produced 

 by innumerable fibres separately almost invisible. On placing 

 the fingers on the paper, the web adheres and can be raised 

 in a sheet as delicate and intricate as any spider's-web. 



It is interesting to see how these fibres fly to any conduct- 

 ing body placed in their path. If the hand is held there it is 

 quickly surrounded by a halo of the finest threads. If a 

 lighted candle is placed in the way, the fibres are seen by the 

 light of the candle to be rushing with the greatest velocity 

 towards it, but when a few inches off they are discharged by 

 the flame, they stop, turn round, and rush back as fast into 

 the saucer whence they came. The conditions for the success 

 of this beautiful experiment are not very easily obtained*. 



Fibes spun by the electrical method are so brittle that they 



* If the wick of the candle is connected with the opposite pole of the 

 machine, the threads at one stage are sure to return to the saucer. 



