394 PELTIER ON THE CAUSES OF THE 
the liquid and the vapour are then in the neutral state. This is 
the reason we cannot collect nor retain the cause of the electric 
phenomenon when the temperature of the vessel is below 110 — 
degrees. Guthrie, in his curious dissertation on the Climate of — 
Russia*, makes a very judicious observation: “ Messrs. Volta — 
and de Saussure,” says he, “consider that the electricity of the — 
atmosphere is due to the vapours which rise from the ground, ~ 
and which are positive; but in our rigorous countries the vapour — 
is reduced to its extreme minimum, and nevertheless the air is ~ 
strongly electrical.” We will not dwell on the error which be- — 
longs to the epoch, of attributing to the air that which is a pro- 
duct of induction ; but with the exception of this error, Guthrie’s 
reasoning is unanswerable. 
34, From what precedes it will be easily understood, that 
in the combinations as well as in the segregations which take 
place in organized bodies, it is not possible that the ambient air ~ 
should take and preserve free the static electricity which is pro- — 
duced; the conductibility of the surrounding substances does 
not permit the contrary tensions to remain in the presence of — 
each other without being neutralized, and they are mistaken who 
would refer to the atmosphere the electricity which a metallic 
conductor collects and transmits to a Volta’s condenser; they 
forget that the electric recomposition is very much easier in the 
midst of these humid substances than the preservation of their 
insulation. It is then neither in evaporation, properly so called, 
nor in the chemical actions of the assimilations and of the segre- 
gations of living bodies, that the cause of the electricity of va- 
pours must be sought out. It must be looked for in the phzeno- 
menon as it takes place in nature; the power of nature herself 
must be used, without adding to it any of our complications. 
35. This is not the place to describe the experiments which 
have determined us to consider electric phenomena as being 
always accompanied by ponderable matter, and to admit with 
Fusinieri, that all radiation takes place only by means of the — 
transport of the molecules of bodies. We must however recol- — 
lect, that electric phenomena are never manifested to us without 
matter; that there is no static phenomenon without a body 
coercing and preserving the electricity ; that there is no dynamic 
phznomenon without a conducting body ; that wherever there is 
an electric phenomenon, there is a ponderable body. The only 
* Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. ii. p. 224. 
