William Garnett - Heroes of Science - Physicists

"The whole force of the bottle, and power of giving a shock, is in the glass itself; the non-electrics in contact with the two surfaces serving only to give and receive to and from the several parts of the glass, that is, to give on one side and take away from the other."

All these statements were, as far as possible, fully substantiated by experiment. They are perfectly consistent with the views held by Cavendish and by Clerk Maxwell, and, though the phraseology is not that of the modern text-books, the statements themselves can hardly be improved upon to-day.

One of Franklin's early contrivances was an electro-motor, which was driven by the alternate electrical attraction and repulsion of leaden bullets which discharged Leyden jars by alternate contacts. Franklin concluded his account of these experiments as follows: —

Chagrined a little that we have been hitherto able to produce nothing in this way of use to mankind, and the hot weather coming on, when electrical experiments are not so agreeable, it is proposed to put an end to them for this season, somewhat humorously, in a party of pleasure, on the banks of Skuylkil. Spirits, at the same time, are to be fired by a spark sent from side to side through the river, without any other conductor than the water – an experiment which we some time since performed, to the amazement of many. A turkey is to be killed for our dinner by the electrical shock , and roasted by the electrical jack before a fire kindled by the electrified bottle , when the healths of all the famous electricians in England, Holland, France, and Germany, are to be drunk in electrified bumpers , under the discharge of guns from the electrical battery .

Franklin's electrical battery consisted of eleven large panes of glass coated on each side with sheet lead. The electrified bumper was a thin tumbler nearly filled with wine and electrified as a Leyden jar, so as to give a shock through the lips.

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