At first you do not notice any change; but after a while you begin
to feel perspiration collecting all over your body as if your clothes
were made of rubber sheeting. Soon this becomes so uncomfortable that
you decide to take a bath. But when you put your wash cloth into the
water you find that it will not absorb any water at all; it gets
a little wet on the outside, but remains stiff and is not easy or
pleasant to use. You reach for a sponge or a bath brush, but you are
no better off. Only the outside of the sponge and brush becomes wet,
and they remain for the most part harsh and dry.

Then perhaps you try to dry yourself with a towel. But that does not
work; not a drop of water will the towel absorb. You might as well try
to dry yourself on the glossy side of a piece of oilcloth.

By this time you are shivering; so you probably decide to light the
oil stove and get warm and dry over that. But the oil will not come
up the wick! As a last resort you throw a dressing gown around you
(it does not get wet) and start a fire in the fireplace. This at last
warms and dries you; but as soon as you are dressed the clammy feeling
comes again--your clothes will not absorb any perspiration. While the
capillary attraction switch is turned off you will simply have to get
used to this.

Then suppose you start to write your experience. Your fountain pen
will not work. Even an ordinary pen does not work as well as it ought
to. It makes a blot on your paper. If you use the blotter you are
dismayed to find that the blot spreads out as flat as if you were
pressing a piece of glass against it. You take your eraser and try to
remove the blot. To your delight you find that it rubs out as easily
as a pencil mark. The ink has not soaked into the paper at all.
You begin to see some of the advantages in shutting off capillary
attraction.

Perhaps you are writing at the dining-room table, and you overturn the
inkwell on the tablecloth. Never mind, it is no trouble to brush the
ink off. Not a sign of stain is left behind.

By and by you look outdoors at the garden. Everything is withering.
The moisture does not move through the earth to where the roots of the
plants can reach it. Before everything withers completely, you rush to
the switchboard and turn on the capillary attraction again.

You can understand this force of capillary attraction better if you
perform the following experiments:

EXPERIMENT 13. Fill a glass with water and c