{ 167] 
XXXVI. Answer to Remarks on Mr. Donovan’s “ Reflections 
on the Inadequacy of electrical Hypotheses.” 
To Mr. Tilloch. 
Sir, — Wire regard to the remarks contained in your Maga- 
gine for December last, upon my “ Reflections on the Inadequacy 
of electrical Hypotheses,” I beg leave to offer a few observa- 
tions. 
Amongst a variety of statements rather unusual in philesophi- 
eal controversy, it is there.meutioned that J observed but half 
of the necessary phenomena, that it was the wrong half, &c. 5 
that I passed my errors through the Kirwanian Society, and the 
Royal Irish Academy, and in the latter case so successtuily as to 
obtain the prize from that learned body. It was principally on 
these accounts that the author of the remarks undertook to de- 
tect my errors, which, as he chooses to assert, had thus received 
the assent of two literary institutions. Half at least of this task 
was unnecessary: the paper in question never was read in the 
Academy, and never obtained the prize. The essay which 
really did obtain the prize I sent in Deeember 1813, and was 
on a very different subject; the essay on electricity was read in 
the Kirwanian Society nearly two years before*. -The inaecu- 
racy of the ubove-mentioned statement is therefore surprising 5 
and the more so, when it is considered with what caution and 
deference a learned body of men (including many fellows of the 
university, and most of the literary characters of the country,) 
should be treated by an urkuewn individual. This much I feit it 
my duty to say with regard to the Academy; and but for this, I 
should have been disinclined to occupy the pages of your Maga- 
zine, or obtrude myself on the notice of its readers, concerning 
a trifling question at issue merely as to facts. 
Extensive reading would have shown that the electrical states 
attributed in my * Reflections” to the Leyden phial had not 
been noticed by me alone. Experimenters of great reputation had 
observed analogous facts, and of this a perusal of the works of 
Wilson, Eeles, of the Encyclopedia Britannica (art. Electricily), 
and of various other authorities that I now forget, will afford am- 
ple testimony; so that the correctness of my experiments stands 
supported by the concurrence of persons of high reputation. The 
question does not relate merely to the states of the phial, but 
comprises the whole doctrine of plus and minus: they are inse- 
* This is distinctly noted in the abstracts of the Kirwanian Society.— 
Phil, May. 
L 4 parably 
