ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY. 129 



star of electric light denoting negative electricity, but thinks 

 that he might have mistaken its figure. 



As Father Beccaria in this place mentions his two fellow Romayne and 

 labourers, Romayne and Henley, I shall here take occasion to 

 notice their observations, and then resume my subject. 



Mr. Romayne* made his experiments between the year ^ . Romayne's 

 1761 and 1772. He held an electrometer, consisting of two apparatus, an 

 cork balls, suspended by threads six or seven inches long out of ^ ™™tf e * a 

 a garret window, by means of a pole five feet long; and to these, pole, 

 when elecrified, applied excited glass, or sealing wax, by the 

 help of another pole, and by that means determined the kind 

 of electricity. 



He found the air at a proper distance from buildings, He found 

 ships' masts, &c. to be very sensibly electrified during winter, in Jricity. 

 foggy or in frosty weather; less so in mists, and still less in calm 

 and cloudy weather. But in summer he never observed any 

 electricity, except during a fog in the cool of the evening, or 

 at night. He never found any electricity during the time of an 

 aurora borealis, unless a fog happened at the same time 5 except- 

 ing once, and then it was weakly positive. 



He always found the electricity of the air to be of the posi- 

 tive kind ; excepting once only,during a fog, on an uncommonly 

 warm day in winter. 



When a fog became very thick, he observed that the cork 

 balls came nearer to each other, but opened again on its recover- 

 ing its former state ; and he also found, that rain during a fog 

 produced the same effect, which ceased as soon as the rain was 

 over. 



Mr. Romayne also observed that the smell of fogs, and fre- Smell of fogs 

 quently of the common air, resembles that of an excited tube, trie spark 

 He observes, that when the density of fogs floating near the 

 earth increases considerably, the balls always approach ; but that 

 the reverse generally hapens when the fogs are high in the air. 

 He once saw a struggle between breezes from N. W. and S. E. 

 at the same time in which the one seemed sometimes to prevail 

 and afterwards the other, The contention was preceded by a 

 smoky haziness, like a fog, which occasioned the balls to 

 diverge; as the haziness thickened they separated more, and the 



* Phi!.Tran9. Vol. LXII. p. 137. 

 Vol. XXXIV.— No, 157. K repelling 



