I 



1820.] On Franklin's Theory of Electricity. 441 



discover and investigate their nature, one of the first advantages 

 that I derived from the undertaking was to observe that the 

 •spark of the first conductor, which had hitherto never been seen 

 divided, shot several very visible and considerable branches, 

 which were subdivided into several minor ones, and all of which 

 directed themselves towards the opposite conductor to which 

 they passed. This ramification of the sparks proceeding from 

 the conductor of this large machine, was so much the mors 

 agreeable to me, as I beheved that it furnished me with an 

 incontestible argument in favour of the system for which I had 

 long been searching for a decisive proof. 



The system which I have in view is that of Frankhn, accordmg 

 to which all electrical phenomena are explained by the non- 

 equihbrium of a single fluid called the electric fluid. I had ia 

 several preceding memoirs pubhshed my opinion relative to this 

 theory, and had^ demonstrated that all the phenomena of the 

 interrupted equilibrium hitherto known were completely ex- 

 plained by this system, and that too in so easy and simple a 

 manner that there was no occasion for having recourse to ano- 

 ther theory formeriy proposed by Du Fay, and afterwards more 

 extended and combined by Symmer, according to which it is 

 imagined that instead of a single electric fluid, there are t\yo 

 -distinct fluids producing the two opposite electrical forces, viz. 

 the posidve and the negative ; one of which, from its being 

 excited by the friction of glass, was at the time of Du Fay, in the 

 infancy of the science, called the vitreous electric matter, and 

 the other was termed the resinous electric matter, from its 

 Tjeing supposed to be principally produced by the friction of 

 some resinous body. 



In another memoir, on the Electrophorus, written by me in 

 conjunction with M. Pacts von Troostwijk, and presented by us 

 in 1782 to the Batavian Society of Rotterdam, in reply to a 

 question proposed by that Society relative to the then new and 

 xmexplained phenomena of this machine, we succeeded in ex- 

 plaining satisfactorily, both from the theory of Frankhn and 

 -convincing experiments, all the phenomena of the electrophorus 

 as produced by a single electric fluid : we, therefore, at that 

 time thought ourselves justified in terminating this memoir * with 

 the following conclusion; viz. that in consequence of the 

 extremely satisfactory explanation which Franklin's system pre- 

 sents, respecting all the particular phenomena of the electropho- 

 rus, the theory of that philosopher was confirmed to such a 

 degree that it might in future be admitted as a confirmed truth. 



Yet it might, perhaps, be remarked with regard to the above 

 inference that an hypothesis, however satisfactory, as far as 

 concerns the explanation of all the phenomena for which it has 

 been proposed, can nevertheless, for this very reason, not be 



• Inserted in (lieRecueil dei Meraoires de la Society Batave, torn. vii. 



