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n could have been taken, with any chance of safety, from an electrical kite-string; and by reference to the comparison hereafter to be made (371.), it will be seen that for common electricity to have produced the effect, the quantity must have been awfully great, and apparently far more than could have been conducted to the earth by a gilt thread, and at the same time only have produced the "usual shocks." 340. That the electricity was apparently not analogous to voltaic electricity is evident, for the "usual shocks" only were produced, and nothing like the terrible sensation due to a voltaic battery, even when it has a tension so feeble as not to strike through the eighth of an inch of air. 341. It seems just possible that the air which was passing by the kite and string, being in an electrical state sufficient to produce the "usual shocks" only, could still, when the electricity was drawn off below, renew the charge, and so continue the current. The string was 1500 feet long, and contained two double threads. But when the enormous quantity which must have been thus collected is considered (371. 376.), the explanation seems very doubtful. I charged a voltaic battery of twenty pairs of plates four inches square with double coppers very strongly, insulated it, connected its positive extremity with the discharging train (292.), and its negative pole with an apparatus like that of Mr. Barry, communicating by a wire inserted three inches into the wet soil of the ground. This battery thus arranged produced feeble decomposing effects, as nearly as I could judge answering the description Mr. Barry has given. Its intensity was, of course, far lower than the electricity of the kite-string, but the supply of quantity from the discharging train was unlimited. It gave no shocks to compare with the "usual shocks" of a kite-string. 342. Mr. Barry's experiment is a very important one to repeat and verify. If confirmed, it will be, as far as I am aware, the first recorded case of true electro-chemical decomposition of water by common electricity, and it will supply a form of electrical current, which, both in quantity and intensity, is exactly intermediate with those of the common electrical machine and the voltaic pile. * * * * * III. _Magneto-Electricity._ 343. _Tension_.--The attractions and repulsions due to the tension of ordinary electricity have been well observed with that evolved by m
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