152 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO.1745. 



dry ; than which nothing is more necessary towards the success of electrical trials. 

 The wind also was then easterly, and inclining to freeze. He that evening used 

 a glass sphere, as well as a tube ; but he always finds himself capable of sending 

 forth much more fire from the tube than irom the sphere, probably from not 

 being sufficiently used to the last. 



He had before observed, that though non-electric bodies, made electrical, 

 lose almost all that electricity, by coming either within or near the contact of 

 non-electrics not made electrical. It happens otherwise with regard to electrics 

 perse, when excited by rubbing, patting, &c.; because from "the rubbed tube 

 we can sometimes procure 5 or 6 flashes from different parts ; as though the 

 tube of 2 feet long, instead of being one continued cylinder, consisted of 5 or 6 

 separate segments of cylinders, each giving out its electricity at a different ex- 

 plosion. 



The knowledge of this theorem is of the utmost consequence towards the 

 success of electrical experiments ; inasmuch as you must endeavour, by all pos- 

 sible means, to collect the whole of this fire at the same time. Professor Holl- 

 man seems to have endeavoured at this, and succeeded, by having a tin tube; in 

 one end of which he put a great many threads, whose extremities touched the 

 sphere when in motion, and each thread collected a quantity of electrical 

 fire, the whole of which centered in the tin tube, and went off at the other ex- 

 tremity. Another thing to be observed is, to endeavour to make the flashes fol- 

 low each other so fast, as that a second may be visible before the first is extin- 

 guished. When you transmit the electrical fire along a sword, or other 

 instrument, whose point is sharp, it often appears as a number of disseminated 

 sparks, like wet gunpowder or wild-fire : but if the instrument has no point, you 

 generally perceive a pure bright flame, like what is vulgarly called the blue ball, 

 which gives the appearance of stars to fired rockets. 



The following is the method Mr. W. made use of, and succeeded in. He sus- 

 pended a poker in silk lines ; at the handle of which he hung several little bundles 

 of white thread, the extremities of which were about a foot at right angles from 

 the poker. Among these threads, which were all attracted by the rubbed tube, 

 he excited the greatest electrical fire he could, while an assistant, near the end 

 of the poker, held in his hand a spoon, in which were the warm spirits. Thus 

 the thread communicated the electricity to the poker, and the spirit was fired at 

 the other end. It must be observed in this experiment, that the spoon with the 

 spirit must not touch the poker ; if it does, the electricity, without any flashing, 

 is communicated to the spoon, and to the assistant in whose hand it is held, and 

 so is lost in the floor. 



By these means he fired several times not only the ethereal liquor or phlogiston 

 of Frobenius, and rectified spirit of wine, but even common proof spirit. These 



