Electricity One Hundred Years Ago & To-day ...

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Johnston, 1894 - Electricity - 199 pages
 

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Page 33 - Spirits, at the same time, are to be fired by a spark sent from side to side through the river, without any other conductor than the water; an experiment which we some time since performed, to the amazement of many.
Page 80 - And when the rain has wet the kite and twine, so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the key on the approach of your knuckle.
Page 80 - ... so long as to reach to the four corners of a large thin silk handkerchief when extended ; tie the corners of the handkerchief to the extremities of the cross, so you have the body of a kite ; which being properly accommodated with a tail, loop and string, will rise in the air like those made of paper ; but this, being of silk, is fitter to bear the wet and wind of a thunder-gust without tearing.
Page 39 - These appearances we attempt to account for thus. We suppose, as aforesaid, that electrical fire is a common element, of which every one of the three persons above mentioned has his equal share, before any operation is begun with the tube. A, who stands on wax and rubs the tube, collects the electrical fire from himself into the glass ; and, his communication with the common stock being cut off by the wax, his body is not again immediately supplied.
Page 39 - To electrize plus or minus, no more needs to be known than this, that the parts of the tube or sphere that are rubbed, do, in the instant of the friction, attract the electrical fire, and therefore take it from the thing rubbing; the same parts immediately, as the friction upon them ceases, are disposed to give the fire they have received to any body that has less.
Page 80 - ... ribbon may not be wet; and care must be taken that the twine does not touch the frame of the door or window. As soon as any of the thunder-clouds come over the kite the pointed wire will draw the electric fire from them...
Page 115 - ... small globules having a high metallic lustre, and being precisely similar in visible characters to quicksilver, appeared, some of which burnt with explosion and bright flame, as soon as they were formed, and others remained, and were merely tarnished, and finally covered by a white film which formed on their surfaces.
Page 88 - The electric fluid is attracted by points. We do not know whether this property is in lightning, but since they agree in all the particulars in which we can already compare them, is it not probable they agree likewise in this? Let the experiment be made.
Page 33 - A turkey is to be killed for our dinner by the electrical shock and roasted by the electrical jack before a fire kindled by the electrified bottle; when the healths of all the famous electricians in England, Holland, France and Germany are to be drank in electrified bumpers under the discharge of guns from the electrical battery.
Page 46 - ... been exposed is taken away, it throws out a pencil of flame so long, that, with this burning machine in my hand, I have taken above sixty steps in walking about my room. When it is electrified strongly, I can take it into another room, and fire spirit of wine with it.

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