AMUSING ELECTRICAL PHENOMENA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 46, 22 February 1879, Page 4

AMUSING ELECTRICAL PHENOMENA.

A correspondent writing to the Times says: — Friction of any _wo substances produces electricity in each. If ihe substances ore "conductors" of electrictj, She force disappears ; if one or both are " non-conductors," all or part of it rem sins. Tbe metals, all moist substances, ell living things, and dump air, are conductors; all animals and vegetatla sDbßtßDces, when perfectly (not only apparently) dry, glass, and resins, are non-conductors. During winter in Canada no more electricity is evoked than at oiher times and in other pifices, but owing to the absence of moisture it meets with fewer conductors, and is more easily recognised. Under these circumstances, trailing the leather sole of a boot on a carpet produces electricity which cannot escape, aod therefore flows over the whole body of the boot-wearer, and enables him to attract onelectrified bodies, to light gas, or even to charge a Leyden jar. Gilbert White, of Selborue, wore dooble stockings during a severe frost, silk outside; on° separating thero, he sayß, " the sparks were ao vivid and plenteous that a person unacquainted with electricity would have thought that the stockings would be burnt.' Faraday, by rubbing his feet on a thick dry rug, got himsalf sufficiently charged witk electricity to fire hydrogen. — (Juvenile Lectures, Royal Institution.) The haman skin is highly electrical. I have frequently obtained sparks from one of my boys still in knickerbockers after striking his little hgs very briskly, but not too hard, with a fur, or piece of silk, while standing on a Btool with glass legs. Four tucnblera and a large book will do, but tho giass must be hot and dry. Ths earth itself is the great reservoir of electricity. Faraday first showed how to tap this inexhausted supply. Magnetism and electricity are convertible. Iron, magnetic by virtue of the earth's force, evokes electricity in n wire moving in front of its poles. By suitable means the wire is made to rotate rapidly, and the currents of electricity are eeut round the iron ; this increases the magnetism, and the magnetism in tarn prodaces still more electricity in the wire Hence many of the machines now producing the eleetcio light literally grind it ont of the invisible envelope of force with which our globe iB surrounded. On tbe floor of our dining-room, and near the Are, we had a baffalo robe or akin, and it was a by no means an infrequent occurrence to see a magnificent disruptive discharge of electricity pass from the hand of a servant to tbe bead of a guest, while the former

standing on the robe, was in the act of handling a plate or dish ; and the shock produced was often of sufficient Btrenglh to cause ronside rablo discomfort to both persons involved. Ou the other side of the tabl:>, where tbe rol>o did not reach, I do not ever remember to have obsorved tbe same degree of electrical tension prevail. As a still trore general illustration of the favorable conditions unJer which these phenomena are pro Jtmublc* in Canada, I may cay that a friend of mine bad a simple electrical nppatalus attached to etch of the pas brackets in bis house, wbich enabled bim to dispense with ail other means of lighting up. It consisted of two parte, a small ro-iicai metal cup and a similarly-shaped woolen piug covered with felt, tha one fitting into the <ther. On drawing the latter of these quickly out of tbe former, it wag, under all ordio .ry circumstances, found to be sufficiently charged to ignito tbe .as issuing from tbe adjacent burner on being present* d to it. Nor were there frf queut occasions during ao average winter when tbe atmospheric conditions were such as to render the contrivance inoperative. «=■■■ -■-■■■ ~n>