268 ILLINOIS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



METEOROLOGY. 



The President announced that the next paper in order was a report 

 upon Meteorology, by Mr. Grove Wright, who came forward and read 

 as follows : 



Rock Falls, Jan. 27, 1874. 



To the President and Members of Northern Illinois Horticultural Society : 



All of my observations pertaining to meteorological phenomena, since 

 the last annual meeting of this Society, have tended to strengthen my con- 

 victions that the views I then expressed in regard to an electrical atmosphere 

 surrounding the earth, are correct, and of the utmost importance, not only 

 in solving all the mysteries of electrical science, but in explaining the 

 origin and progress of storms, and other atmospheric disturbances which 

 properly belong to the subject of meteorology. Another statement which 

 I then made, that the only effect of the passage of a current of electricity 

 through any substance, aside from mechanical results, is decomposition, 

 cannot be disputed, and thus, indirectly, electricity may have an important 

 relation to vegetable growth. As I propose to confine my remarks at this 

 time to the subject of storms, it may be necessary to first give a brief out- 

 line of my theory of atmospheric electricity, and the facts upon which it 

 is founded. The whole theory maybe stated in one proposition, viz.. 

 Atmospheric electricity is a subtile fluid, surrounding the earth like an atmo- 

 sphere, and is subject to the same general laws which govern other material 

 substances. This implies that it is a material substance, and that terres- 

 trial gravity would cause it to be more dense near the earth than in the 

 higher regions, which facts can be readily proved. 



Attach a silk thread to an electrometer, and let it down to the earth 

 from a chamber window. Now, as all fluids tend to an equilibrium, the 

 density of the electricity in the electrometer will be equal to that of sur- 

 rounding objects at the surface of the earth, and the leaves will not 

 diverge. Draw it up suddenly to the window, and the leaves will diverge, 

 showing a charge of positive electricity, because the air at this height has 

 a less density of electricity than that of the electrometer which came from 

 the surface of the earth. Touch the ball of the electrometer, and it will 

 be discharged and remain in equilibrium with surrounding objects at this 

 height. Then, if it be lowered to the earth without touching it, the leaves 

 will diverge with negative electricity, showing that the density at the upper 

 window was less than that near the earth. You must understand that 

 positive and negative are merely relative terms — positive meaning an ex- 

 cess over equilibrium, and negative, a deficiency — and the same charge 

 which was positive can be made to assume a neutral and even a negative 

 condition. This experiment with the electrometer is only one of a num- 

 ber which all tend to demonstrate that, in a normal condition, the dens- 

 ity of the electrical atmosphere decreases from the surface of the earth 

 upward, according to the laws of the terrestrial gravitation. This alone 

 should convince any one that electricity is a material substance, although 



