UNIVERSITY 



OF 



NEW THEORIES OF ELECTRICITY. 553 



abridgments of the Philosophical Transactions, cannot 

 overcome the plain meaning of Watson's own words, writ- 

 ten before he had ever heard of Franklin, which have re- 

 mained in the records of the Royal Society. The unpre- 

 judiced student of to-day will perhaps find in the idea of 

 electrical equilibrium in all bodies a sufficient distinction 

 between the Franklinian and Watsonian theories, even 

 if, in view of other differences, he does not finally regard 

 the two hypotheses as diametrical opposites. 



New theories now began to crop up on every hand. 

 Benjamin Wilson supposed an electric matter, composed 

 of Newtonian ether, light and other material particles 

 4< that are of a sulphurous nature," existing more or less in 

 all bodies, and moving with such exceeding velocity that, 

 when that motion is checked by the near approach of an- 

 other body, a sudden rarefaction of the air causes an explo- 

 sion attended with the dissipation of the electric matter in 

 flame. John Elicott asserted that electric phenomena are 

 due to effluvia which are attracted by all other bodies, but 

 the particles of which are mutually repellent. Boulanger 

 conceived an electric fluid, consisting of the finer parts of 

 the atmosphere, which crowded upon the surfaces of elec- 

 tric bodies when the grosser parts had been driven away 

 by the friction of the rubber. Nollet further amplified his 

 doctrine of the affluence of electric matter driving all light 

 bodies before it by impulse, and its effluence carrying 

 them back again, and supposed in every body to which 

 electricity is communicated the existence of two sets of 

 pores, one for the emission of the effluvia, and the other 

 for the reception of them ; for the spirit of Descartes was 

 still lingering in France. Du Tour improved upon 

 Nollet' s theory by assuming a difference between the 

 affluences and effluences, and considered that the particles 

 are thrown into "vibrations of different qualities." 



It would be easy, but useless, to add to this list. Priest- 

 ley well describes the condition of affairs in saying that 

 many hypotheses were no more than the beings of a day, 



