BETWEEN DISTANT SURFACES.

235   STANDARD ELECTRICAL DICTIONARY. The cut, Fig. 161, shows the general course taken by lines of force between two excited surfaces when near together. Here most of them are straight lines reaching straight acro from surface to surface, while a few of them arch acro from near the edges, tending to spread. If the bodies are drawn apart the spreading tendency increases and the condition of things shown in the next cut, Fig. 162, obtains. There is an axial line whose prolongations may be supposed to extend indefinitely, as occupying a position of unstable equilibrium. Here the existence of a straight and unterminated line of force may be a umed. A direction is predicated to lines of force corresponding with the direction of an electric current. They are a umed to start from a positively charged and to go towards a negatively charged surface. A positively charged body placed in an electrostatic field of force will be repelled from the region of positive into or towards the region of negative potential following the direction of the lines of force, not moving transversely to them, and having no transverse component in its motion. [Transcriber's note: More precisely, "A positively charged body placed in an electrostatic field of force will be repelled from the region of positive into or towards the region of negative potential ACCELERATING in the direction of the lines of force, not ACCELERATING transversely to them, and having no transverse component in its ACCELERATION." Previously acquired momentum can produce a transverse component of VELOCITY.]