It is remarkable that the best conductors of electricity, that is to say, the substances which offer least resistance to its passage, for instance the metals, are also the best conductors of heat, and that insulators made red hot become conductors.  Air is an excellent insulator, and hence we are able to perform our experiments on frictional electricity in it.  We can also run bare telegraph wires through it, by taking care to insulate them with glass or porcelain from the wooden poles which support them above the ground.  Water, on the other hand, is a partial conductor, and a great enemy to the storage or conveyance of electricity, from its habit of soaking into porous metals, or depositing in a film of dew on the cold surfaces of insulators such as glass, porcelain, or ebonite.  The remedy is to exclude it, or keep the insulators warm and dry, or coat them with shellac varnish, wax, or paraffin.  Submarine telegraph wires running under the sea are usually insulated from the surrounding water by india-rubber or gutta-percha.

The distinction between conductors and non-conductors or insulators was first observed by Stephen Gray, a pensioner of the Charter-house.  Gray actually transmitted a charge of electricity along a pack-thread insulated with silk, to a distance of several hundred yards, and thus took an important step in the direction of the electric telegraph.

It has since been found that frictional electricity appears only on the external surface of conductors.

This is well shown by a device of Faraday resembling a small butterfly net insulated by a glass handle (fig. 5).  If the net be charged it is found that the electrification is only outside, and if it be suddenly drawn outside in, as shown by the dotted line, the electrification is still found outside, proving that the charge has shifted from the inner to the outer surface.  In the same way if a hollow conductor is charged with electricity, none is discoverable in the interior.  Moreover, its distribution on the exterior is influenced by the shape of the outer surface.  On a sphere or ball it is evenly distributed all round, but it accumulates on sharp edges or corners, and most of all on points, from which it is easily discharged.

A neutral body can, as we have seen (fig. 4), be charged by contact with an electrified body:  but it can also be charged by induction, or the influence of the electrified body at a distance.

Thus if we electrify a glass rod positively (+) and bring it near a neutral or unelectrified brass ball, insulated on a glass support, as in figure 6, we shall find the side of the ball next the rod no longer neutral but negatively electrified (-), and the side away from the rod positively electrified (+).