An account of a very extraordinary effect of lightning on a bullock : at Swanborow, in the parish of Iford near Lewes, in the county of Sussex / in sundry letters from Mr. James Lambert ... and one from William Green ... to William Henly. Read at the Royal Society, May 1, 1776.

  • Lambert, James, 1725-1788.
Date:
1776
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An account of a very extraordinary effect of lightning on a bullock : at Swanborow, in the parish of Iford near Lewes, in the county of Sussex / in sundry letters from Mr. James Lambert ... and one from William Green ... to William Henly. Read at the Royal Society, May 1, 1776. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tricity. From this funnel, the electrified drops were received into a large infulated earthen difh ; acrofs which lay a long wire; and from its end hung a pair of light cork-balls. On working the machine (after about ninety or an hundred turns of the winch, and when fifty or fixty drops had fallen into the difh) the balls feparated, and pre- fiently diverged, to the diftance of half an inch. Then taking off the electricity, from all the bo¬ dies concerned, I blew the column of water out of the capillary tube, replaced it in the bucket, pointing towards the funnel as before, and worked the machine again, to try whether the electricity, iffuing from the fyphon, and palling through the air, might not eleCtrify all the bodies, fo as to feparate the balls, without the jet of water; but no fuch event happened. I then replaced it, with the jet falling into the funnel as before; when it fucceeded. I then tried it a fecond time, without the jet of water; and it failed. I thus repeated the experiment al¬ ternately, with, and without the jet, taking off the electricity of the apparatus carefully between the trials; till I was perfectly fatisfied, that the jet of water, received into the funnel, and falling from thence into the infulated difh below, was the medium by which the balls, hanging from the end of the wire placed therein, became electri¬ fied. Hence I inferred, that vapour from boiling water,; &c. muff alfo be a conductor of electri¬ city, though probably in a lefs degree, as being more difiipated. Having fince repeated this ex¬ periment by receiving the electrified jet imme¬ diately