C 58 ] 
to obferve with what violence they will be driven 
about the room; and this difperfion is in all directions 
from the center of the explolion ; and .it makes no 
difference whether the rods, between which it is 
made, be fharp-pointed or otherwife. 
The effect of this lateral force is very remarkable 
in attempts to fire gunpowder in eleCtrical explofions. 
If the gunpowder be confined ever fo clofe in quills 
or cartridges, and they be held fait in vifes, yet, 
when the explofion is made in the center of them, it 
will fometimes happen, even when a wire has been 
melted in the midft of the powder, and the fragments 
have been feen red-hot for fome time in different 
parts of the room, that the powder has not been fired, 
or only a few grains of it, the reft being difperfed 
with great violence, part of it flying againft the faces 
of perfons who afiifted in making the experiments. 
This circumftance, together with the charcoal being 
a conduCter of electricity, makes it fo extremely diffi- 
cult to fire gunpowder by eleCtrical explofions j and 
it is evidently owing to this lateral force, that parts 
of the melted wire fly fo many ways, and to fo great a 
diltance from the place of explofion. 
This lateral force is exerted not only in the neigh- 
bourhood of an explofion, when it is made between 
pieces of metal in the open air, but alfo when it is 
tranfmitted through wires that are not thick enough 
to conduct it perfectly ; and the fmaller the wire, 
and the more complete the fufion, the greater is the 
difperfion of light bodies placed near it. At one 
time, when the wire was not melted, but turned 
blue by the explofion (in which cafe it generally af- 
fumes a dufky red, which lafts but for a moment), 
there 
