Page:Various Forces of Matter.djvu/127

Rh it attracts these keys, two or three in succession, and it will attract a very large piece of iron. That then is a very different thing indeed to what you saw in the case of the shellac, for that only attracted a light ball, but here I have several ounces of iron held up. And if we come to examine this attraction a little more closely, we shall find it presents some other remarkable differences; first of all, one end of this bar (fig. 37) attracts this key, but the middle does not attract. It is not then the whole of the substance which attracts. If I place this little key in the middle it does not adhere; but if I place it there, a little nearer the end, it does, though feebly. Is it not then very curious to find that there is an attractive power at the extremities which is not in the middle!—to have thus in one bar two places in which this force of attraction resides. If I take this bar and balance it carefully on a point, so that it will be free to move round, I can try what action this piece of iron has on it. Well, it attracts one end, and it also attracts the other end, just as you saw the shellac and the glass did, with the exception of its not attracting in the middle. But if now, instead of a piece of iron, I take a magnet, and