Page:A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism - Volume 1.djvu/72

32 being within it, and which vanishes when the glass is removed, is called Electrification by induction.

Similar effects would be produced if the glass were suspended near the vessel on the outside, but in that case we should find an electrification vitreous in one part of the outside of the vessel and resinous in another, When the glass is inside the vessel the whole of the outside is vitreously and the whole of the inside resinously electrified.

Electrification by Conduction.

29] Let the metal vessel he electrified by induction, as in the last experiment, let a second metallic body be suspended by white silk threads near it, and let a metal wire, similarly suspended, he brought so as to touch simultaneously the electrified vessel and the second body.

The second body will now be found to be vitreously electrified, and the vitreous electrification of the vessel will have diminished. The electrical condition has been transferred from the vessel to the second body by means of the wire. The wire is called a conductor of electricity, and the second body is said to be electrified by conduction.

Conductors and Insulators.

If a glass rod, a stick of resin or gutta-percha, or a white silk thread, had been used instead of the metal wire, no transfer of electricity would have taken place. Hence these latter substances are called Non-conductors of electricity. Non-conductors are used in electrical experiments to support electrified bodies without carrying off their electricity. They are then called Insulators.

The metals are good conductors; air, glass, resins, gutta-percha, vulcanite, paraffin, &c. are good insulators; but, as we shall see afterwards, all substances resist the passage of electricity, and all substances allow it to pass, though in exceedingly different degrees. This subject will be considered when we come to treat of the Motion of electricity. For the present we shall consider only two classes of bodies, good conductors, and good insulators.

In Experiment II an electrified body produced electrification in the metal vessel while separated from it by air, a non-conducting medium. Such a medium, considered as transmitting these electrical effects without conduction, has been called by Faraday a Dielectric