This was constructed of a shallow box placed in a vertical position, with metallic front and back and insulating sides.
Ebonite takes a fine polish, and is valuable to the electrician on account of its insulating properties, and to the chemist and photographer because vessels made of it are unaffected by most chemical reagents.
In conjunction with Josiah Latimer Clark, with whom he entered into partnership in 1861, he invented improved methods of insulating submarine cables, and a paper on electrical standards read by them before the British Association in the same year led to the establishment of the British Association committee on that subject, whose work formed the foundations of the system still in use.
Cavendish proved it by enclosing a metal sphere in two hemispheres of thin metal held on insulating supports.
In the form of standard coil recommended by the Berlin Reichsanstalt the coil is immersed in an insulating oil which is kept stirred by means of a small electric motor during the time of making the measurement.