with reference to the Views of Mr. Red field. 431 



and an upward current of tremendous force produced. We 

 may also infer that bodies are carried aloft by the joint action 

 of electrical attraction, and the vertical blast which it produces. 



40. The effects upon the leaves of trees noticed by me after 

 the tornado of New Brunswick, in 1835, and still more those 

 subsequently observed by Peltier after that of Obatenage in 

 1839, cannot be explained without supposing them to have 

 been the medium of an electric discharge *. 



41. When a convective discharge takes place between a 

 stratum of air in proximity to the earth, and a stratum in 

 the region of the clouds, the greater density and pressure of 

 the lower stratum will determine the current to rush up in a 

 vertical direction. 



42. Experience has demonstrated that electricity cannot 

 exist on one side of an electric, without its existence simulta- 

 neously upon the other side. If the interior of a hollow glo- 

 bular electric be neutral, so will the outside be ; but if the 

 interior be either positively or negatively excited, the outside 

 will be found in the one case negative, in the other positive. 



43. The atmosphere consists of an electric in the hollow 

 globular form ; and as electricity is known to pervade the 

 space within it occupied by earth, the principle in question 

 must also pervade the space beyond that portion of the at- 

 mosphere which is sufficiently dense to insulate or to perform 

 the part of an electric. 



44. Thus there are three enormous concentric spaces, of 

 which the intermediate one is occupied by an electric, while 

 the innermost one and the outer one are occupied by con- 

 ductors. The two last-mentioned may be considered as equi- 

 valent to two oceans of electricity, of which one may be called 

 the celestial, the other the terrestrial electric ocean. 



* " In this hasty account I have, with the intention of returning to this 

 portion of the subject, omitted to speak particularly of its effect upon trees. 

 All those which came within the influence of the tornado, presented 

 the same aspect ; their sap was vaporized, and their ligneous fibres 

 had become as dry as if kept for forty-eight hours in a furnace heated 

 to ninety degrees above the boiling point. Evidently there was a great 

 mass of vapour instantaneously formed, which could only make its escape 

 by bursting the tree in every direction ; and as wood has less cohesion 

 in a horizontal longitudinal than in a transverse direction, these trees 

 were all, throughout one portion of their trunk, cloven into laths. Many 

 trees attest, by their condition, that they served as conductors to con- 

 tinual discharges of electricity, and that the high temperature produced 

 by this passage of the electric fluid, instantly vaporized all the moisture 

 which they contained, and that this instantaneous vaporization burst all 

 the trees open in the direction of their length, until the wood, dried up and 

 split, had become unable to resist the force of the wind which accompanied 

 the tornado." 



