Home-made Electrical Machine.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2, 11 January 1906, Page 29

Home-made Electrical Machine.

Cut a stiff piece of paper into an oval or a circle of nearly the size of a common tea tray. Fasten it to two upright handles, one at each end, both made of paper, and attached by means of sealing wax. Now take any common tea tray that you may be able to borrow in the house and lay it on top of two glasses. These will* furnish the insulation. Warm the paper disc thoroughly on the stove till it is as dry as it can possibly be. Then, lay it on the table and brush it violently with a common cloth brush. If you spread a piece of silk or a rubber sheet under it so much the better, though it is not necessary. The friction has made the paper jeleclric. Lift it from the table, , lay if on the tea tray, and approach a corner of it with the knuckle of your finger or with a sharp metal point. A spark will leap out from it immediately:. Now you have an electric battery -in a most .simple form. By rubbing the paper as often as "it loses 'its electridity, it is possible to get enough sparks to load a Leyden, jar- or any other form of small electric storage battery. A very simple Leyden jar can be made by filling a tumbler . half - full with shot and- sticking an iron or silver spoon into . it. By letting • the sparks from the tea tray leap continually, to the spoon the tumbler-jar- fltir ally will accumulate so much electricity that it wiljU be extremely uncomfortable to get a shock frpm~it. '- .