Page:Various Forces of Matter.djvu/151

Rh the power will cause the gold leaves to burn away, which they could only do when they touched each other. Now I am going to cause these two leaves of gold to approach gradually, and I have no doubt that some of you will see that they approach before they burn, and those who are too far off to see them approach will see by their burning that they have come together. Now they are attracting each other, long before the connection is complete, and there they go! burnt up in that brilliant flash, so strong is the force. You thus see, from the attractive force at the two ends of this battery, that these are really and truly electrical phenomena.

Now, let us consider what is this spark. I take these two ends and bring them together, and there I get this glorious spark like the sunlight in the heavens above us. What is this? It is the same thing which you saw when I discharged the large electrical machine, when you saw one single bright flash; it is the same thing, only continued, because here we have a more effective arrangement. Instead of having a machine which we are obliged to turn for a long time together, we have here a