KLBCTRIC COLUMN. 
315 
•vcr it is convenient for particular observations. He has also 
«n apparatus for the pendulum ; but for the purpose of bis 
observations, it is not necessary that it strikes constantly : his 
ball is heavier than mine, and he only connects it to the column 
for particular purposes . 
Having communicated to this ingenious experimental philo- H^uss- 
° o ir r nianu’s large 
•opher, the new phenomenon produced by the sun’s rays on the column afford- 
column, he found in it, first, the explanation of a phenomenon ji*|„^iarto\bat 
which had surprised him. His column is usually kept in a first related, 
room of a north aspect, where the sun shines only in the morn- 
ing ; and he had remarked, that till a certain part of the morn- 
ing, the pendulum did not strike ; but it began at once to strike 
very fast, then ceased ; which striking and ceasing to strike 
corresponded, for the time, to the sun shining, and ceasing to 
shine on the column. Mr. Haussmann has made many observa- 
tions on other phenomena produced by his column, promising to 
afibrd results deserving to be published by himself, which, 
therefore, I will not anticipate, but remain to my object. 
After my communication of the new phenomenon, Mr. 
Haussmann haviag found in it the explanation of the above 
related phenomena, he resolved to make a more complete 
experiment. Taking the column from his room, where the 
pendulum did not strike, he transported it on an outward gallery 
where the sun was shining : very soon the strikings were so 
rapid, that he could not count them ; but they also soon 
ceased when the apparatus was carried back to the former 
room. 
Thus, therefore, the production of a new quantity of electric General 
fluid in the column, by the son beams, is, I think, ascertained, at *’®™**’^** 
least to a degree deserving the attention of experimental philo- 
sophers ; and I hope it will have the effect of multiplying this 
apparatus, and increase the number of its obsen-ers. This 
phenomenon certainly opens a new road of investigation in 
one of the most important branches of natural philosophy, that 
of the influence, in the phenomena of our globe, of the sun’s 
rays, both directly, and by the already ascertained formation of 
two 
