158 ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES OF SILK, 
with more vigour than the cork itself. He after- 
wards fixed the ball upon long sticks, and upon 
pieces of brass and iron wire, with the same suc- 
cess ; and lastly attached it to a long piece of pack- 
thread, and hung it from a high baleony, in which 
state he found that, by rubbing the tube, the ball 
was constantly enabled to attract light bodies in 
the court below. 
His next attempt was to prove whether this 
power could be conveyed horizontally as well as 
perpendicularly. With this view, he fixed a cord 
to a nail which was in one of the beams of the 
ceiling ; and making a loop at that end which hung 
down, he inserted his packthread, with the ball 
which was at the end of it through the loop of the 
cord, and retired with the tube to the other end of 
the room; but in this state he found that the ball 
had totally lost the power of attraction. Upon 
mentioning his disappointed efforts to a friend, it 
was suggested that the cord, which he had used to 
support his packthread, might be so coarse as to 
intercept the electric power ; and they accordingly 
attempted to remedy this evil by employing a silk 
string, which was much stronger in proportion than 
a hempen cord. With this apparatus the experi- 
ment succeeded far beyond their expectations. 
Encouraged by this success, and attributing it 
wholly to the fineness of the silk, they proceeded 
to support the packthread, to which the ball was 
