IQS PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1751. 



fVinkler to the R. S,, in order to verify the Facts before-mentioned. Btj Mr. 



W. Watson, F. R. S., p. 231. 



Professor Winkler, in his first letter to Dr. Mortimer, dated at Leipsic, 

 March 12, 1748, mentions, among other particulars, that if odoriferous sub- 

 stances were included in glass globes and tubes closely stopped, and if these 

 globes were electrized, the smell of the odoriferous substances would as easily as 

 the magnetical power pass through the glass, and be conveyed with the electrical 

 effluvia to considerable distances, on substances readily conducting electricity : 

 that when a man was electrized with a globe of this sort, the odoriferous matter 

 pervaded his whole body; and that -not only his skin and his cloths, but his 

 breath, saliva, and sweat, were impregnated with the smell of the substance in- 

 cluded in the glass. That after these globes had been rubbed a few minutes, 

 the flavour of their contents would be strongly perceptible on entering the cham- 

 ber in which this operation was performing ; and that the substances which he 

 had then tried, were sulphur, cinnamon, and balsam of Peru. 



Mr. Winkler mentions, that when he made use of sulphur in his globe, in 

 company with his friend Mr. Haubold, and others, the smell of the sulphur was 

 perceived at more than 1 feet distance, and was so prevalent, that his com- 

 pany was driven away by it : but that himself staying in some time longer, his 

 cloths, his body, and his breath, were infected by it ; and that this smell even 

 continued on him the next day. Further, on his repeating the experiment, as 

 he had before found, that sulphur had been useful to him, he on the third day 

 found in his mouth manifest indications of an inflamed blood. After this he 

 wanted to transmit a pleasant odour ; and for this purpose employed cinnamon, 

 which under the like circumstances sent forth its odour in great abundance ; so 

 that it was not only immediately perceptible to any one entering the chamber, 

 but continued there the next day. 



Balsam of Peru, under the like treatment, so impregnated the air of the 

 room, that the cloths and the breath of the persons in it smelled of the balsam, 

 after having passed through several streets ; and that Mr. Winkler, when drink- 

 ing his tea next morning, still perceived its flavour. A few days after, when the 

 smell of the chamber was gone off, he conducted a chain on silk lines from it, 

 through the open air into another chamber quite separate from the fornier. In 

 this second chamber he placed a man on a silk net, who held the chain in his 

 hand, and after having electrized him with the sphere containing balsam of 

 Peru for a quarter of an hour, any person who was perfectly ignorant of what 

 was doing, would immediately smell the balsam in it. The man who was elec- 

 trized, said that his tea next morning had a finer taste than usual. 



As these experiments did not succeed here, though attempted with a due at- 



