VCrC. XLV.J PHrLOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 417 



electrical fire came from the floor of the room. 3. That it would not pass from 

 the floor quick enough for the person to be shook, if his shoes were dry. 4. That 

 the force was increased in proportion to the points of contact of non-electrics 

 with the glass containing the water. 



Then the solution of this phenomenon became more easy, which he thus 

 offers. 



1 . He has showed that a quantity of electricity is furnished from the nearest 

 unexcited non-electrics, equal to that accumulated in excited originally-electrics 

 and excited non-electrics. 2. This being so, when the phial of water held in one 

 hand of a man is highly electrified, and he touches the gun-barrel with a finger 

 of his other, on the explosion which hence arises, this man instantaneously parts 

 with as much of the fire from his body, as was accumulated in the water and 

 gvm-barrel ; and he feels the eflfects in both arms, from the fire of his body rush- 

 ing through one arm to the gun-barrel, and from the other to the phial. 3. As 

 much fire as this man then parted with, is instantaneously replaced from the floor 

 of the room, and that with a violence equal to the manner in which he lost it. 

 4. But this flux of electrical aether, either from the floor to the man, or from the 

 man to the water, is prevented for reasons sufficiently obvious, if the glass con- 

 taining the water be thick; or if the points of non-electric contact are few; or 

 if the man be placed on originally-electrics ; or, which is the same thing, if the 

 soles of his shoes be dry. 5 . As we find that the electricity passes at least equally 

 quick through dense mediums, which are non-electrics, as through those which 

 are more lax and spongy ; may we not therefore conclude, that the cause why we 

 feel most pain at the joints of our arms, and in the tendons of our heels, arises 

 from the texture in the tendons and tendinous ligaments of those parts? 



END OF THE FORTY-FOURTH VOLUME OF THE ORIGINAL. 



Concerning an apparent Motion observed in some of the Fixed Stars. By James 



Bradley, D. D. Astronomer Royal, and F. R. S. N" 485, p. 1 . f^ol. XLF. 



Anno 1747-8. 



The great exactness with which instruments are now constructed, has enabled 

 the astronomers of the present age to discover several changes in the positions of 

 the heavenly bodies; which, by reason of their smallness, had escaped the notice 

 of their predecessors. And though the causes of such motions have always sub- 

 sisted, yet philosophers had not so fully considered what the effects of those 

 known causes would be, as to demonstrate a priori the phenomena they might 

 produce, so that theory itself is here, as well as in many other cases, indebted 



VOL. IX. 3H 



