ci68 Dcfcrlption of an laiprcvcd Ele&romiter. 



the learned and the unlearned iliouid, with unabated zeal^ 

 have employed their attention on this phenomenon, as im- 

 portant to fpeculativc philofophy as it is by its influence in 

 focietv. Without this incellant attention our knowledce 

 would not have made fuch rapid progrefs as it has done in 

 the laft forty years ; and there might have been littV differ- 

 ence between Otto von Guerick's balls of fulphur, or Hau- 

 fen's glafs globes, which were feventy years later, and the 

 eleftric machine now in the Teylerian Mufeum at Hacrlem. 

 The former were fcarcely fufficient to attra6l the lighted 

 bodies, whereas the latter approaches near to nature in its 

 ftrength, in its awful and wonderful effe6ls ; and feems to 

 favour the poffibility of the idea, that there are natural 

 powers capable of impelling heavy bodies with prodigious 

 force; and which, conduced by the hand of man, may, 

 fome centuries hence, banifli the ufe of gunpowder, as the 

 latter, a few centuries ago, baniflied bows and arrows. 



Franklin conveyed ele6lricity from the atmofphere, loaded 

 a battery with it, and directed its mighty power with the 

 fame eafe as that weak power excited by an ele£lric machine. 

 On account of the above-mentioned poflibility of exhibiting 

 the eleftric power in a certain degree and of a certain ftrength, 

 it was found more and more neccflary to have inftruments 

 proper for afcertaining thefe, and by which it might be de- 

 termined with preciiion when and how a required efie6t 

 could be produced. 



Though thefe inftruments have undergone many varia- 

 tions and improvements, and though there is an eflential 

 .difference between Stephen Gray's or Du Fay's threads and 

 the elefl-rometers of Achard and Brooks *, they are all to be 

 confidered rather as announcers of eleftricitv than as accu- 

 rate gauges or meafures, as they are all incapable of flicwing 

 its intenfity. Another inftrument, hitherto equally imper- 



* A defcription of ihcfc Electrometers may be feen in Adams's and 

 Cavallo's Treatifts of EledLriciry, ami in other works of the like kind. 



feft. 



