ELECTRICITY. [Lesson xxi. 



with a dry warm cloth, to clear it of damps, which 

 it may have contracted in a variety of ways. The 

 quantity of Electric Matter which every body has 

 lying dormant in it, is called its natural quantity; 

 and this would always remain motionless and in- 

 visible if nothing disturbed it. But when any 

 more is forced into it, as suppose at one end, the 

 whole is instantly put into motion thereby, and 

 begins to be driven out at the other end, if it can 

 find a passage. 



The earth is the grand source of the Electric 

 Fluid, and no additional quantity can be forced 

 into any body but from the earlh. If the body 

 be a free conductor, and have a communication 

 with the earth by .means of any other conducting 

 substance, as metal, or by a table, to the floor and 

 walls of a room, and from thence to the earth, the 

 Electric Fluid will run as fast from the conductor 

 Jo the earth, as it is by any means driven into the 

 conductor. But if the communication between 

 the earth and the conducting body be cut off by 

 means of any non-conductor, some of the Electric 

 Matter may be forced into the conductor, by 

 which means it will have more than its natural 

 quantity; and the earth, from which that addi- 

 tional quantity comes, will have so much less : 

 which could never be, if the Electric Fluid were 

 not of an elastic nature, or could not be com- 

 pressed. 



When any body has more than its natural quan- 

 tity of this fluid, it is said to be electrified positive- 



ly, 



