Lay on a table small pieces of paper or cotton, feathers, or gold-leaf;
then rub with a silk handkerchief a glass tube, hold it parallel to
the table, and the several pieces will be alternately attracted and
repelled, and a kind of electrical dance will be kept up.
If to the further end of the tube you hang a brass ball, by a thread of
linen, hemp, or metallic wire, the ball will participate in the magic
power of the rubbed tube; but if the ball be suspended by a cord of
silk, worsted, or hair, or be attached by wax or pitch, the attractive
and repulsive properties of the rod will not pass into the ball.