Inquiries concerning the elementary laws of electricity

The author states, that it has been his object, in this series of investigations, to perfect the methods of electrical measurement, whether relating to the quantity of electricity, intensity, inductive power, or any other element requiring an exact numerical value, and by operating with large statical forces both attractive and repulsive, to avoid many sources of error inseparable from the employment of extremely small quantities of electricity, such as those affecting the delicate balance used by Coulomb. He then describes some improvements in his hydrostatic electrometer, an instrument already mentioned in his first paper, which, although not available for the measurement of such minute forces as those to which the balance of torsion is applicable, is still peculiarly delicate and well adapted to researches in statical electricity. Its indications depending on the force between two opposed planes operating on each other under given conditions, are reducible to simple laws, and are hence invariable and certain; the attractive force between the discs is not subject to any oblique action, is referable to any given distance, and may be estimated in terms of a known standard of weight. The author next proceeds to the further consideration of the subject of his former papers, viz. the elementary laws of electrical action. He proves, by the following experiments, that induction invariably precedes, or at least accompanies attraction and repulsion. A circular disc of gilded wood, about six inches in diameter, is suspended by an insulating thread of varnished silk from a delicate balance; a delicate electroscope is attached to this disc, and the whole is counterpoised by a weight. A similar disc insulated on a glass rod, and having also an electroscope attached to it, is placed at any convenient distance immediately under the former. One of the lower discs being charged with either electricity and the other remaining insulated and neutral, the electroscope of the neutral disc begins to rise, whilst that of the charged disc, already in a state of divergence, tends to collapse: when these respective effects ensue, the suspended disc descends the charged disc. Two inductive actions are indicated in this experiment, the one the author considers to be a direct induction, the other a reflected induction.