A letter from Paris concerning some new electrical experiments made there / [John Turberville Needham].
- John Needham
- Date:
- 1746
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A letter from Paris concerning some new electrical experiments made there / [John Turberville Needham]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![[ 7' ] ‘ , Exper. the ioth confifts in the communication of the eleCtrical fire from the glafs fpheroid to many per fons at once, as in England from a tube-, with this only difference, that the company do not join hands, but are united to each other by taking hold of iron chains, which furprifingly increafes the force of the communicated electricity: for it is to be obferved, that whenever the com¬ munication is carried on by a metallic medium, the effeCts are much more fen- fible. — Exp. the 11th is no other than what has been frequently tried in Eng¬ land, the attraction of leaf-gold by a hollow wooden globe, to which electri¬ city is communicated, by a packthread of a very great length fufpending it, after it has been conducted over filken threads eroding the chamber at feverah diftances, in a fort of fpiral, confiding of as many turns, as the place will admit. I had almoft forgot to take notice of two particulars, which were the confequences of fome of the preceding experiments,, and may in fome meafure ferve to illuftrate them : the one regards the communication of electricity the other, its furprifmg force. At the grand convent of thz Carthufians here at Paris, the whole community formed a line of nine hundred toifes, by means of iron wires of a proportionable length, between every two,, and con- fequently, far exceeding the line of the one hundred and eighty of the guards above-mentioned : the effeCt was, that when, the two extremities of this long line met in contaCt with the electrified phial, the whole company, at the fame inftant of time, gave a fudden fpring, and all equally felt the lhock, that was the confequence of the experiment. The other phenomenon was the refult of an experiment of monfieur le Monnier's, at the college of Harcourt. He fixed at the two extremities of a brafs ruler two fmall.birds, a fparrow and a chaffinch : this ruler had a handle or pedeftal fattened to the middle of it, for the con¬ venience of holding it. When both the gun-barrel and phial had been fufficiently electrified, as in the 4th experiment, he applied the head of the fparrow to the fufpended phial, and the head of the chaffinch to the barrel: the confequence upon the firft trial was, that they were both inftantaneoufly {truck lifelefs, as it were, and motionlefs, for a time only, and they recovered fome few minutes after*, but upon a fecond trial, the fparrow was ftruck dead, and,.upon exa¬ mination, found livid without, as if killed with a flafh of lightning, moft of the blood-veflels within the body being burft by the lhock: the chaffinch re¬ vived, as before.. This is,, lir, the exaCteft relation I have been able to put together, of a feries of experiments I have been exceedingly furprifed with: and which Ifhould fooner have tranfmitted to you,, had I not: been obliged to employ fome time in the clearing up feveral.particulars', and in the fatisfying my felf about feveral faCts, by repeated trials, before I would venture to, give you an account of them.— That you may very long enjoy the moft perfeCh health and happinefs,* is the fmcere wiffi of, f- s SIR, Your moft obliged humble fervant. 3f.. N..](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30385556_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
