100 Ta EO RAY: vor 
the courfe of a thunder cloud is ufually from the north- 
weit, with the wind at fouth-eaft, perpendicular to the di- 
rection of the coaft, and contrary to each other. 
Inland feas and great lakes, fuch as are thofe in North- 
America, may anfwer the fame purpofes in the interior 
parts of the country, as the ocean does near the limits of 
the continent ; both by affording the neceflary fupplies of 
vapors for the formation of the clouds, and by their attrac- 
tive influence upon thofe clouds when formed. 
I now conclude with a few hints, which I fhall throw 
into. the form of queries. 
1. Whatever the primary caufe of evaporation may be; 
does not the formation of vapors into diftiné clouds de- 
pend upon the eleétrical ftate of the atmofphere? 
2. Were the atmofphere always uniformly electrical 
could we have any rain*; in that cafe, if evaporation be 
performed independent of ele@tricity, fhould we not be 
invelloped in everlafting fogs? 
3. Mr. Canton fuppofes that the aurora borealis may be 
“ the flafhing of eletric fire from pofitive towards nega- 
* tive clouds, throughout the upper part of the atmof- 
‘“‘ phere.”” But as. the air is ufually charged more or lefs 
with vapors, even when perfectly pellucid; and as the 
moft remarkable aurore frequently appear without a cloud 
in the hemifphere, may not this phenomenon be rather 
occafioned by the “ flafhing of ele&tric fire,” from one 
region or body of air to another ina different ftate of elec~ 
tricity, through the intervening vapors? 
4. May not the reafon of its ufual appearance in the north 
and of its flafhing fouthward be, that, in every northern 
latitude, the air to the fouthward is at all feafons of the 
year, ceteris paribus, more affected by the heat of the fun 
than the air northward of the fame latitude; and does not 
this occafion an electrical current to flow from north to 
fouth, 
* Signior Beccaria concludes from experiments, that gentle rains are the effects of a moderate, 
as thunder fhowersare of a more plentiful, electricity. 
