Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885
Various
Science -- Periodicals
In Fig. 5 we are enabled to study with more ease a spark obtained with
nearly the same arrangement. The balls, H and N, did not here rest
directly upon the sensitized film, but upon two small sheets of tin
cemented to the extremities of the plate at 0.06 inch apart. In addition,
the source employed was not the Holtz machine, but the pile with
induction coil. Two nearly parallel sparks were obtained. It will be seen
that these are very complex. Each of them seems to be formed of four
lines of different sizes, entangled with one another and presenting
different sinuosities. Aside from this, the plate is traversed for a
space of 0.04 of an inch by curved lines running from one pole to the
other, and exhibiting numerous sinuosities.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.]
Fig. 6 represents a discharge that occurred under the following
circumstances: The disk, P, being metallic and connected with one of the
poles, there was placed upon it a thin ebonite plate of the same
dimensions as the photographic one, and then the latter with the
sensitized pellicle upward. Finally, the pellicle was put in contact with
the upper conductor, L, which terminated in a ball and was connected with
the other pole of the induction coil.
It will be seen that, despite the two dielectrics (ebonite and glass)
interposed, and the opacity of one of them, the efflux that occurred
around the disk, P, is quite sharply reproduced upon the sensitized plate
by a circle like that which we observed in Figs. 2 and 3. It will be
seen, besides, that an infinite number of ramifications in every
direction has been produced around the ball, and we can follow the travel
of the spark that leaped between the ball and disk in two directions
situated in the prolongation of one another.
Under the two principal and clearly marked lines that this spark made
there are seen two other, very pale and much wider ones, that present no
sinuosities parallel with the first.
The results of these experiments are very curious. The position of the
plates was varied in 18 different ways, as was also the form of the
conductors. We have spoken of those only that appear to us to present the
most interest. Unfortunately, notwithstanding the skill of the engraver,
it is impossible to render with accuracy all the details that are seen
upon examining the negative. The proofs that have been printed upon paper
present much less sharpness than the negative, for there are certain
parts of the figures on the glass that do not show in the print.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.]
We have been content here to make known the results obtained, without
drawing any conclusions from them. It is to be hoped that these
experiments, which can be easily repeated by means of the apparatus
described above, will be repeated and discussed by electricians, and that
they will contribute toward making known to us the nature of the
mysterious agent that will give its name to our era.--_G. Mareschal,
in La Lumiere Electrique._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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