JOURNAL 



OP 



NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, CHEMISTRY, 



AXD 



THE ARTS. 



J ANV ART 1798. 



ARTICLE I. 



Experiments made ■with a View to afcertain the Caiife of Buildings, luhich hnve ]\Ieia!!ic Cion- 

 duBors belonging to them, being Jiriicl by Lightning. By Lieutenant-Colonel HaLDANE. 



I 



T is not necefTary, in the prefent communication, to enquire what may be the nature of 

 electricity ; whrther it exift in the form of one fluid only, and all its phenome.a depend 

 upon the prefence of a greater or Jefs quantity than naturally belongs to all bodies ; whether 

 its efFe£ls may depend upon the influence of oppofitc polarities, and the operations of at- 

 tra£live and repellent powers in a fingle fluid ; or, laflly, whether it exiflo in the form of 

 two different, though always co-exifting, fluids, produced by the union or the feparation of 

 certain gafes, which belong to ele£lric and non-ele£lric fubftances, according to their various 

 eledlive attractions, and which may be brought into aiflion by the attrition of thofe fub- 

 ftances, either in the form of heat or of eledricity, according to their different combina- 

 tions. 



Thefe, it mud be admitted, arc points of curiofity and importance ; but at prefent it is 

 only nectflary to admit, what was clearly afcertained by Dr. Franklin, and fince confirmed 

 by the obfervaticns of many other ingenious and able philofophers, that there is a famenefs 

 between the matter of lightning and the ele£lrical fluid. And ele£lrical experiments, al- 

 though the refults of them cannot be compared with the effeils produced in the vaft and ex- 

 tenfive operations of nature ; yet, by exhibiting to our view fimilar appearances, they may 

 furnilh us with notions of, at leaft, the pjpximate, though we may for ever remain ignorant 

 of the more remote, caufcc which produce thofe mofl wonderful, and fometimcs mod 

 dreadful, effcfls. 



Electricity, attached to the fame kind of fubftances, fliews itfelf in two difTcrciit forms. 



Vol. I.— jANUARTf 1798. • 3K which 



