286 On certain Electrical Phenomena. 
regret at its occurrence. I must at the same time observe, that 
Mr. Donovan has also been guilty of an inadvertency, having 
most strangely, but 1 cannot believe wilfully, misrepresented 
the meaning conveyed in the first part of the sentence with 
which my paper concludes, as will evidently appear by com- 
pating it with the first two sentences in the second paragraph 
of his answer: 
I now procéed to reply to the observations by which he at- 
tempts to support the correctness of his experiments, and to 
invalidate the results of those which I have opposed to them. 
** 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. Electricity), and ‘of various 
other authorities that I now forget, will afford ample testimony, 
&c.”” Here it would have been well, if, instead of making this 
vague reference to authority, Mr. Donovan had specified some 
of the facts which “* experimenters of great reputation had ob- 
served,” and had shown in what manner and to what extent 
they support /its experiments. That he should have referred to 
Eeles is singular; for, in the first place, he has in his © Reflec- 
tions” combated that writer’s hypothesis; and secondly, as he 
must be aware, his own experiments (supposing them correct) 
are as irreconcilable to that hypothesis, as they are to Franklin’s 
theory. It does not appear therefore that Eeles can render any 
assistance to Mr. Donovan on this occasion; and if he could 
have derived any from the other sources he has mentioned, it is 
pity he has not availed himself of it. ‘* The question does 
not relate merely to the states of the phial, but comprises the 
whole doctrine of plus and minus.” Mr. Donovan’s memory 
appears here to have failed him; for the objections he has urged 
in his “ Reflections” against the doctrine of accumulation and 
deficiency, are derived principally from -his examination of the 
electrical states of the phial; and accordingly it was those ob- 
jections alone that I] undertook to refute. Hence there is 
little propriety in the following questions which he puts in his 
answer. ‘f Why should so limited a survey of those objections 
be taken, which are all in harmony; and why need one part of 
the hypothesis be sustained when it is opposed by the other ?”’ 
He includes here in the term “ objections” not only those he 
had made in his ‘* Reflections,” but also those “ analogous facts” 
which, he says, ‘‘ experimenters of great reputation had ob- 
served ;’’ but which he did not there specify and propose as 
suck; although in his answer he lumps theirs and his own to- 
gether, 
