ELECTRIC PHA NOMENA OF THE ATMOSPHERE. 395 
question which leaves any doubt, is that of knowing whether the 
spark is or is not accompanied by terrestrial matter, and whe- 
ther the electric radiation can be made without the transport of 
this matter. Not being able to quote actually all the experi- 
ments which have determined us to adopt this opinion, we will 
eall to mind that the radiation between two bodies takes place 
the more easily, as they are more volatile; that balls of platina 
must be held nearer to one another in vacuum than balls of 
zine *, to have a constant current of light; that the radiation is 
still more easily made with mercury, and incomparably better 
with water. Besides, the experiments we are about to give, and 
which depend only upon meteorology, will be sufficient to render 
it probable that in this phenomenon ponderable matter is in- 
variably transported, and that the general phenomenon only 
exists in consequence of this. 
36. The preceding experiments have proved that the earth is 
a body charged with resinous electricity, or to express it more 
logically, that it possesses the cause of the phenomena to which 
we have given this name for more than a century. The celestial 
Space, not being a material body, does not possess this power of 
coercion, it is not in the same state of resinous electricity ; and 
it is this state of negatively resinous which has been named 
vitreous. It is not, as we have already said, a special, real state, 
caused by a peculiar substance or a peculiar modification ; it is 
only the absence of the resinous state, or this state at a less de- 
gree. It is merely a difference and not a particular state. To 
avoid circumlocution, we have retained the word vitreous to 
express this difference in minus of resinous coercion. In a spe- 
cial work I will hereafter give the proofs which induce us to 
reject this nomenclature as defective and likely to retard the 
progress of the science of electricity. 
Cuaprer ITI. 
Of the Presence of Vapours in the Atmosphere. 
37. We have seen (§ 32) that the vapours produced solely 
by the influence of the air and of heat below 110° did not 
* See Annali di Chimica di Brugnatelli, t. xviii. p. 136. Giornale di Phy- 
sica de Pavia, 1825, p. 450; 1827, pp. 353, 448. Annales des Sciences, 1831, 
PP. 291, 365. Phil. Mag. Oct. 1839. Bibl. Univ. de Gen., 1840, t. xxv. p. 426. 
em. di Zantedeschi, Venezia, in 4to, 1841, and the Experiments of Messrs. 
Breguet and Masson, 1841. 
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