Franklin, Dufay ajid Ampere. 463 



by means of the magnetism imparted to needles exposed in 

 coils of copper wire*. 



4. Supposing one or more rows of electrical particles, 

 forming such a filament of electricity as must occupy the space 

 within a wire of great length, to be made the medium of dis- 

 charge toaLeyden jar; agreeably to the hypothesis of one fluid, 

 the electrical filament must be attracted at one end of the 

 wire, and propelled at the other, as soon as its terminations 

 are brought into due comn>unication with the coatings of the 

 jar. Yet the influence of the oppositely charged surfaces of 

 the jar cannot be conceived to extend to those portions of 

 the electricity which are remote from the points of contact, 

 until they be reached by a succession of vibrations. Hence 

 it is inconceivable that every particle in the filament of electric 

 matter can be made at the same time to move, so as to con- 

 stitute a current having the necessary velocity and volume to 

 transfer, instantaneously, the electricity requisite to constitute 

 a charge. Even the transmission of the impulses, in such an 

 infinitesimal of time, seems to be inconceivable. 



5. In reply to these objections, it has been urged by the 

 Franklinians, that a conductor being replete with electricity, 

 as soon as this fluid should be moved at one end, it ought to 

 move at the other. This might be true of a fluid if incom- 

 pressible, but could not hold good were it elastic. A bell 

 wire moves at both ends when pulled only at one; but this 

 would not ensue were a cord of gum elastic substituted for 

 the wire. 



6. But if the flow of one fluid with the enormous velocity 

 inferred be difficult to conceive, still more must it be incom- 

 prehensible that two fluids can rush with similar celerity from 

 each surface of the jar, in opposite directions, through the 

 narrow channel afforded by a wire, especially as they are 

 alleged to exercise an intense affinity; so that it is only by a 

 series of decompositions and recompositions that they can pass 

 each odier. That, agreeably to the theory of Dufay, equi- 

 valent portions of the resinous and vitreous fluids must ex- 

 change places during an electrical discharge, will appear 

 evident from the following considerations: — 



7. One surface being redundant with vitreous and deficient 

 commensurately of resinous electricity, and the other redun- 

 dant with the resinous and deficient of the vitreous fluid, it is 

 inevitable that to restore the equilibrium, there must be a 

 simultaneous transfer of each redundancy to the surface 

 wherein there is a deficiency of it to be supplied. .If, after 

 decomposing a large portion of the neutral con)pound pre- 



* Coniinunicatcd to the Aineiican Philosophical Society. 



