Lectures on electricity / by James Ferguson, F.R.S.

  • James Ferguson
Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on electricity / by James Ferguson, F.R.S. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    57/112 (page 51)
    reason why all the persons feel the shock at tne same instant may be understood by reading the second, third, and fourth paragraph of the first section. If a bason of water be placed between every two of the persons who desire to have a shock, they will have no occasion to join hands, nor even to touch one another, but only to dip the fingers of the hands in water that otherwise would have joined. And when the jar is dis- charged, they will all receive a shock. And, if there were as many canals of water (each as long as that in St. James’s Park) as there are persons who want to take the shock, and these canals so situated as to form a kind of circle, and their neigh- bouring ends had about three feet of solid ground be- twixt them, and persons standing on these intervals of ground should put one of their hands in the water on the right side, and the other hand into the water on the left, it will answer as well as if they had stood close, and joined hands as above. Dr. Watson has given an elec- tric shock to two persons who were two miles distant from each other ;24 and who, by having stop-watches in their hands, found that they felt the shock at the same instant.26 EXPERIMENT XXXII. Giving a Shock by the Magic Picture. 73. Set the tace of the picture (§ 27) to the ball G ol the prime conductor, and turn the globe by the winch to electrify it. Then take it away, and holding it by the top of the frame, in a horizontal position, with the face- upward, lay a small piece of gilt metal, made in the form of a crown, upon the head. This done, desire any per- i\ote 24. A circuit of four miles in length, composed ol a copper wirej has been employed; and yet the motion of the electric fluid has been so rapid, that it has not required any appreciable time for its passage through so great an extent. Note 2d. Phil. Irans, abridged, Vol. X, page 363.—Author. D