30 PAPERS, ETC. 
passes through the poroüs medium of the garden pot, and 
keeps up the supply. Here we have, first, fissures in the 
moist clay, caused by a weak negative eleetricity ; secondly, 
a constant spring of water, rising above the level of the supply, 
occasioned by the same negative electricity ;—the first 
accounting for fissures made in strata when soft, but after- 
wards indurated by time; the second, for springs issuing 
from the tops of hills elevated above all the surrounding 
ones. To prove that this is caused by negative, and not by 
positive electrieity, reverse the connections of the wires 
with the poles of the battery, making that in the clay 
positive instead of negative, and that in the water in the 
basin negative instead of positive—then no FISSURE will take 
place in the clay, and all its moisture will be drawn 
out of it and added to the water in the basin, incon- 
testibly proving that the fissures and spring were caused by 
negative, and not by positive electricity, nor by capillary 
attraction. If the experiment as first described be repeated, 
only substituting a powerful for a weak battery, a rapid 
and strong action will take place within the clay, and 
large pieces of it will be forced up in all directions, 
and large fissures produced, filled with a comparatively 
large quantity of water. Here we have the earthquake. 
Some years since I noticed an account of an earthquake 
in the kingdom of Ava, in the East Indies, in which it was 
stated that the earth opened in tremendous chasms, which 
were instantly filled with water, which gushed out in suffli- 
cient quantity to flood the surrounding country, causing 
vast damage. It was stated that each fissure was deep 
enough to float a man-of-war. Is not this closely analogous 
to the experiment here described? Again, if while the 
weak electrie current is passing through the clay, as 
ät first represented, you plunge three or four glass funnels 
