559 
to Electricity and Magnetism, 
venient expression of Dr. Hare) that fifteen persons joining 
hands and standing on the ground, received the shock at 
once, when the first person of the series touched the wire. 
A Leyden jar l3eing grasped in the hand by the outer coating, 
and the knob presented to the wire, a severe shock was re- 
ceived, as if by a perforation of the glass, but which was found 
to be the result of the sudden and intense induction. 
125. These effects were evidently not due to the accumu- 
lated intensity at the extremities of the wire, on the prin- 
ciples of ordinary electrical distribution, since the knuckle 
required to be brought within about a quarter of an inch be- 
fore the spark could be received. It was not alone the quan- 
tity, since the experiments of Wilson prove that the same 
effect is not produced with an equal amount of electricity on 
the surface of a large conductor. It appears evidently there- 
fore a case of the induction of an electrical current on itself. 
The wire is charged with a considerable quantity of feeble 
electricity, which passes off in the form of a current along its 
whole length, and thus the induction takes place at the end of 
the discharge, as in the case of a long wdre transmitting a 
current of galvanism. 
126. It is well known that the discharge from an electrical 
battery possesses great divellent powers ; that it entirely se- 
parates, in many instances, the particles of the body through 
which it passes. This force acts, in part, at least, in the di- 
rection of the line of the discharge, and appears to be ana- 
logous to the repulsive action discovered by Ampere, in the 
consecutive parts of the same galvanic current. To illustrate 
this, paste on a piece of glass a narrow slip of tinfoil, 
cut it through at several points, and loosen the ends from 
the glass at the places so cut. Pass a discharge through 
the tinfoil from about nine half-gallon jars; the ends, at each 
separation, will be thrown up, and sometimes bent entirely 
back, as if by the action of a strong repulsive force, between 
them. This will be under- 
stood by a reference to fig. 14< ; Fig. 14. 
the ends are shown bent back 
at a, a, a^ a. In the popular 
experiment of the pierced 
card, the bur on each side 
appears to be due to an ac- b glass plate; a , «, a, a, openings 
tion of the same kind. tinfoil. 
127. It now appears probable, from the facts given in pa- 
ragraphs 119 and 120, that the table in paragraph 92 is only 
an approximation to the truth, and that each current from 
