ELECTRICITY. 285 



It may be proper to observe, before I proceed 

 further, that some of the most enlightened men 

 of the last century, supposed that the phlogiston 

 of Stahl, (which was the undiscovered latent 

 heat of Dr. Black,) was the basis of heat, light, 

 and electricity. Dr. Kirwin, who strangely con- 

 founded hydrogen with the phlogiston of Stahl, 

 supposed that electricity might be composed of 

 this substance greatly rarefied, in a state of 

 combination with elementary fire ; while M. Be- 

 nedict De Saussure regarded it as a fluid com- 

 posed of heat and some other unknown principle. 

 (Voyages dans les Alpes, torn. ii. p. 243.) The 

 Abbe Nollet, Dr. Hill, the Rev. W. Jones, and 

 some others, have maintained that heat and elec- 

 tricity were modifications of the same power ; 

 but as their opinions were not supported by 

 an extended examination of their recondite ana- 

 logies, or fundamental laws, philosophers have 

 continued to regard them as distinct imponder- 

 ables. 



Atmospheric Electricity. 



The most direct and compendious method of 

 ascertaining the relations of caloric and elec- 

 tricity, would be a careful history of all the phe- 

 nomena connected with the origin of lightning. 

 If it can be shewn, that the caloric of aqueous 



