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increased frequency of the alternations of positive and negative 

 electricity. 



All observers agree that the air is negative on the approach 

 of great storms, and negative or alternately negative and 

 positive in unsettled weather, and the Author remarks that 

 such storms are almost invariably accompanied by convulsive 

 diseases, or diseases of the nervous centres in some form ; and 

 in support of his statement he quotes many cases from his 

 notes of the storms of the last twelve months, but more 

 particularly the succession of gales which occurred from the 

 21st to the 30th of October, 1859 (in one of which the 

 " Royal Charter" was lost), the gales of the 25th, 26th, and 

 27th of May last, which were accompanied with frequent hail 

 showers ; and those of the 24th of August and four following 

 days. Other forms of disease accompany such atmospheric 

 conditions, such as premature uterine action, epistaxis, and 

 diarrhoea, with vomiting and cramps ; and cases of this class 

 are quoted by the Author from his notes ; and he remarks 

 that it would then appear that negative electricity plays an 

 important part in the above atmospheric conditions and 

 morbid actions. After describing the electrical phenomena 

 of continued heavy rains, and of thunder storms and heavy 

 showers of hail and snow, the Author observes that as the 

 electrical tension of the clouds which produce these storms 

 and showers is always strong, it must have a coercive force 

 upon all bodies at the earth's surface ; and that as, according 

 to our notions of electrical action, the moment the influence 

 of the inducing body is removed, a re-arrangement of the 

 electricities in the induced body takes place, we cannot well 

 avoid the conclusion that during the period of induction, and 



