The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1900-03-21
ELECTRICITY RUNS WORLD.
The Latest Addition to the Marvels OF
Science.


" NrHS.
would two pith balls charged with the
same kind Of electricity. 1t is a we'll
known law of physics that pith ball
or any other object charged with neg
ativc electricity, will, on the contrary,
be attracted by another charged with
positive electricity. Hence, before
they can believe that electricity caus-
cs the moisture PARTICLES to aggregate
and form droplcts heavy enough to
fall, these old school mctcorologists
must be convinced that the including
region Of atmosphere is charged with
both positive and negative electricity
at the same time. But, according to
Prof. Gates, if one locality, or cloud,
acquires charge Of electricity, some
adjacent locality or cloud must acquire
Il charge Of opposite electricity. Mid
way between these two oppositcly
charged clouds, or regions Of moist
air, there must be one or more second
ary regions where their respective par
ticlcs commingl". Those Of one being
positive and those of the other being
negative, they attract, cohcrc and
form rain drops. One region may be
a cloud, or vaporchargcd air mass,
and the other may be another cloud,
or the earth. When Disturbances Of
the electric equilibrium Of the atmos-
phcrc occur diffcIcL IS in density,
pressure, temperature and moisture
result
AN EXPERIMENTAL CYCLONE.
Returning to the cotton tufts, it
was discovered that when one was
charged with positive, the other with
negative electricity. and the former on
ly was saturated with smoke, injected
into it's centre, the smoke escaped to-
ward the opposite tuft and assumed
conical: cloud-liko shape, its particles
travelling across the intervening space
in the form of water spout. This
was repeated many times, and led
Prof. Gates to believe that under vastly
more powerful charges of the earth
surface currents Of air might be car
ried from sharp peaks and points up
ward into the air, or that when such
discharge takes place downward it may
carry the upper current down to the
lower, thus producing the funnel.
shaped appearance Of the cyclone
clouds.
BY connecting one terminal of his
static machine with the bottom Of a
saucer Of water, pierced by wire, and
by causing the other terminal to ap-
proach the top of the water, Prof.
Gates produced miniature water
spout AS soon as the water touched
the upper terminal it was thrown lat
orally outward in a shower of drops.
In later
RAIN MAKING EXPERIMENT
the professor placed his static ma
chino midway between two windows Of
his laboratory, while moisture laden
breeze was blowing through the room.
He suspended mass of cotton from
the ceiling by piece of dry silk. On
the floor below he placed masses of
different substances having ground
connections. He charged the cotton
serving as cloud-with positive
electricity and mist was seen to form
about midway between it and the low
misunderstanding as the earth
which was soon covered with moisture
particles. This proved to him that
the moisture PARTICLES not only aggre-
gated into droplcts, as result Of the
process explained above, but that there
was an electric translation Of the
moisture from the cotton cloud to the
floor.
When asked how complete thun-
der storm might be produced by such
artificc, Prof Gates replied that this
was done by maintaining layer of
moist air in the top Of room and by
charging this to potential different
from that Of the floor below. If
charged to sufficient height and with
sufficient quickncsc there would result
sudden flash and discharge, ac-
companicd by fall Of rain upon tho
floor.
Additional experiments to which
Prof. Gates gives particular weight,
were made in closer collaboration with
Prof. Hazen. Their object was to
prove moro satisfactorily that when
two aerial localities are charged with
opposite electricities there is more
rapid diffusion OF moisture from one to
klo al a. thor - ~r1ar &ko o~o coA o1oc