VOL. XLIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 41.1 



at Paris, before the letter communicating them was received by our most worthy 

 president from thence. 



He had another machine made, which carried a globe of 1 6 inches diameter. 

 He united the power of this large globe with that of 3 of the others beforemen- 

 tioned; but found the strokes from the excited non-electrics not increased ac- 

 cording to expectation. In 2 experiments indeed, where the dissipation of the 

 whole power of these globes was visible as fast as it was excited, the effect of 

 this additional globe was very considerable. The first was, when 2 pewter plates 

 were held, one in the hand of an electrified man, and the other by one standing 

 on the floor; when these plates were brought near each other, the flashes of 

 perfectly pure and bright flame were so large, and succeeded each other so fast, 

 that when the room was darkened, he could distinctly see the faces of 1 3 people 

 who stood round the room. The other was from a piece of large blunt wire 

 hanging to the gun-barrel ; from the end of which, when electrified, and any 

 black non-electric unexciteil was brought near, though not near enough to cause 

 a snap, a brush of blue lambent flame, totally different from the former, was 

 very conspicuous when the room was dark, of more than an inch long and ah 

 inch thick. Here the phosphoreal smell might be perceived at a considerable 

 distance. If the back of a hand was brought so near this wire as to occasion a 

 snap, and these snaps were received for some time, you would feel them like so 

 many punctures on the skin, occasioning red spots, which have lasted 24 hours. 



If, when a person is electrified, he brings his hand on the clothes of one that 

 is not, they both have a sensation exactly resembling that of many pins running 

 into the skin, which continues as long as the globes are in motion. This is most 

 perceptible when the clothes are of thin woollen cloth or silk ; animal substances^ 

 less so when of linen or cotton, which are vegetable. 



If some oil of turpentine be set on fire in any vessel held in the hand of an 

 electrified man, the thick smoke thence arising, and received against any non- 

 electric of a large surface, held in the hand of a 2nd man standing on an elec- 

 trical cake; this smoke, at a foot distance from the flame, will carry with it a 

 sufficient quantity of electricity for the 2nd man to fire any inflammable vapour. 

 The electrical strokes have been likewise perceptible on touching the 2nd- man, 

 when the non-electric held in his hand has been in the smoke of the oil of tur- 

 pentine between 7 and 8 feet above the flame. Here we find the smoke of an 

 originally-electric a conductor of electricity. 



Likewise if burning spirit of wine be substituted instead of oil of turpentine; 

 and if the end of an iron rod in the hand of the 2nd man be held at the top of 

 the flame, he will kindle other warm spirits held near his finger. Here we find 

 that flame conducts the electricity, and does not perceptibly diminish its force. 



JVIr. W. now proceeds to take notice of that surprising effect, that extraor- 



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