The Boy's Playbook of Science / Including the Various Manipulations and Arrangements of Chemical and Philosophical Apparatus Required for the Successful Performance of Scientific Experiments in Illustration of the Elementary Branches of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy

by John Henry Pepper

Fig. 229.

a. The coil. b. Hearder's discharger, with thin platinum wire, p, hanging between the points. c. Another discharger, and powder going off between the points from the little table. The pillars of the dischargers are glass. The arrows show the direction of the current of electricity.

Eighth Experiment.

Amongst so many beautiful experiments, it is somewhat difficult to say which is the most pleasing, but for softness and exquisite colouring, with the continuous vibrating motion of the flowing current of electricity, nothing can surpass "the cascade experiment." [This beautiful experiment is usually termed "Gassiott's Cascade," and is thus described by that gentleman. Two-thirds of a beaker glass, four inches deep by two inches, are coated with tinfoil, leaving one inch and a half of the upper part uncoated. On the plate of an air-pump is placed a glass plate, and over it the beaker, covering the whole with an open-mouthed glass receiver, on which is placed a brass plate having a thick wire passing through a collar of leather; the portion of the wire within the receiver is covered with a glass tube; one end of the secondary coil is attached to this wire, and the other to the plate of the pump. As the vacuum improves the effect is very surprising; at first a faint clear blue light appears to proceed from the lower part of the beaker to the plate; this gradually becomes brighter, until by slow degrees it rises, increasing in brilliancy until it arrives at that part which is opposite, or on a line with the inner coating, the whole being intensely illuminated; a discharge then commences, as if the electric fluid were itself a material body running over.] This result is obtained by coating the inside of a handsome glass goblet with tinfoil, and placing it under a jar fitted with a collar of leather and ball, and arranged in the usual manner on the air-pump. Directly a vacuum is obtained, the ball is moved down to the inside of the goblet, and the wires from the coil being attached, a continuous series of streams of electric light seem to overflow the goblet all round the edge, and it stands then the very embodiment of the brimming cup of fire, and emblematical of the dangers of the wine-cup. (Fig. 230.)

Fig. 230.

Gassiott's Cascade.

Ninth Experiment.

If a piece of wood five inches long and half an inch square is placed on the table of the discharger, and one wire brought on to the top edge and the other approached to within three inches of it, and touching the wood, and the space between them moistened with the strongest nitric acid, a curious effect is visible from the creeping along of the fire, which gradually carbonizes and burns the wood. (Fig. 231.)