52 Mr. Laming on the primary Forces of Electricity, 



57. Imagine a plane surface A, to be insulated and charged 

 with free electricity ; its compensator will be the contiguous 

 atmosphere, this being an insulator acquiring in consequence 

 a plus condition. Suppose now a second similar plane B, 

 also insulated, to be placed parallel to A, and within its com- 

 pensating atmosphere ; it will in part assume the compensa- 

 tion of the plus charge, becoming in consequence itself" posi- 

 tively electrical by the retention of its own equivalent of elec- 

 tricity, and thus be in its turn compensated by a stratum of 

 atmosphere, whose electrical condition also will for a similar 

 cause be positive. 



58. Under these circumstances the intensity of electrical 

 attraction in B as measured by an electrometer will be greater 

 as its distance from A is less, and less at any particular distance 

 as its atmospheric or other compensation is more perfect. 



59. But the compensation and the distance being given, the 

 intensity induced in B will vary as the square of the quan- 

 tities of free electricity in A directly (8.). 



60. Let P and N, fig. 2, be insulated conductors charged 

 to an equal extent, the first positively and the other nega- 

 tively; each being compensated by the surrounding portions 

 of atmosphere n 7i' and^jj'. Let C, a cylindrical conductor, 



Fig. 2. 



f \ / \ 



, — ,n' \ / fi' — 



(O) 



lO) 



N 



be so interposed midway between P and N, that one of its 

 ends shall by becoming negative assume part of the compen- 

 sation of P ; and its other end by becoming positive assume 

 a corresponding part of the compensation of N. Thus si- 

 tuated, if the force of major attraction be great enough to 

 overcome the minor attraction, all that portion of free elec- 

 tricity in P which is not compensated by the inner spherical 

 stratum of air w' (at a less distance) will pass into the near 

 end of the conductor ; at the same time that the plus charge 

 of its other end will pass into N, leaving the latter still nega- 

 tive to the amount of its plus compensation by the inner stra- 

 tum of air p^ In either of the electrified bodies a residuum 



