310 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1747. 



well-electrified in his left. He then caused the wire of his phial to touch an iron 

 rod, fixed upright in a piece of cork that floated near the edge of the basin. At 

 that instant both observers felt a violent shock in both their arms. The same fact 

 was again confirmed by experiments made on two basins at the same time, that it 

 might appear distinctly, that the electrical effluvia did really pass along the super- 

 ficies of the water." 



The water of the basin in this experiment was no more electrified than the wire 

 which dragged along the ground, &c. was in the former. When Mr. W. was 

 first informed, without being acquainted how, that an acre of water had been 

 electrified, he was amazed, and told the gentleman who acquainted him, that if 

 his idea of electricity was in the least true, such an effect could not be produced, 

 without electrifying the whole terraqueous globe from a larger mass of matter. 

 And indeed when he heard M. le Monnier's paper read, he easily saw the decep- 

 tion : so that, instead of electrifying the whole quantity of water contained in the 

 basin, the electricity passed only through so much of it as formed a line between 

 the iron rod fastened in the floating cork, and the hand of that observer which 

 was dipped in the water. 



These experiments still more and more establish the account Mr. W. lately laid 

 down, of the electricity's always describing the shortest circuit between the 

 electrified water and the gun-barrel ; or, which is the same thing, the wire of the 

 electrified phial. And this operation respects neither fluids nor solids, as such, but 

 •only as they are non-electric matter. Thus this circuit, in the preceding experi- 

 ment between the phial and the wire, consisting of the 2 observers, the iron 

 chain, the line of water, and te iron rod in the floating cork. 



4thly, M. le Monnier mentions, " That it has been confirmed, by repeated 

 comparisons, that a bar of iron, placed in the abovementioned curve, does not at 

 all acquire more electricity when it is suspended in silken lines, than when it is 

 held in the bare hand : whence it appears to him, that in this case the contigu- 

 ous non-electric bodies do neither partake of, nor absorb in any way, the electri- 

 city which has been communicated." 



The curve line beforementioned, let it consist of whatever non-electrics it will, 

 unless the whole of it be properly supported, the communicated electricity cannot 

 be accumulated : so that the suspending one part in silk lines cannot be supposed 

 to produce any effect. 



This gentleman further observes, " That the phial of water fitted to its wire 

 does not receive the least degree of electricity, if its wire, suspended by a silk line, 

 be applied to the globe in motion, or if that phial be placed on a dry glass stand." 

 This M. le Monnier takes to be directly contrary to M. du Fay's rule ; especially 

 as the phial cannot be replete with electricity, unless, while it is exciting, some 

 non-electric body touch the phial below the water. 



