[EXPERIMENTS WITH ELECTRICITY.]
Fig. 1.
This mysterious "agent," as people call it for want of a better word, can be produced in the easiest fashion, and some of its ways studied with the simplest kind of apparatus, constructed of articles that lie close at hand.
If we rub a stick of sealing-wax with a piece of cloth, we shall see that it will attract some small fragments of paper placed near it. Nothing is easier than to construct a small pendulum to show with perfect clearness the wonder of electric attraction. A piece of iron is fixed on a wooden pedestal, and holds a thread of silk, to the end of which is fastened a little ball cut out of a piece of cork. The stick of sealing-wax, after being rubbed with the cloth, will attract the ball, as shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 3.
We can easily construct other electrical apparatus. Take a lacquered tea-tray about a foot long, and cut out a sheet of thick wrapping paper so that it will lie over all the level portion of the tray. At each side of this sheet of paper fix two bands of paper, as in Fig. 2, so as to serve as handles. The tea-tray should be placed upon two tumblers to support it and to insulate it, glass being a "non-conductor." By a non-conductor is meant a substance that will not convey electricity, or allow it to pass away.