238 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1751. 



natural quantity of electricity by the present operation. Mr. W. considers as an 

 experimentum crucis of the truth of the doctrines here laid down; viz. not only 

 that the electricity is furnished by those bodies hitherto called non-electrics, and 

 not by the electrics per se;* but also, that we are able to add to, or take from, 

 that quantity of electricity, naturally adherent to bodies. 



By what denomination shall we call this extraordinary power .!■ from its effects 

 in these operations, shall we call it electricity ? from its being a principle neither 

 generated nor destroyed; from its being every where and always present, and in 

 readiness to show itself in its effects though latent and unobserved, till by some 

 process it is produced into action, and rendered visible; from its penetrating the 

 densest and hardest bodies, and its uniting itself to them, and from its immense 

 velocity; shall we, with Theophrastus, Boerhaave, Niewentyt, Gravesande, 

 and other philosophers, call it elementary fire.'' or shall we, from its containing 

 the substance of light and fire, and from the extreme smallness of its parts, as 

 passing through most bodies we are acquainted with, denominate it, with Rom- 

 berg and the chemists, the chemical sulphureous principle, which, according to 

 the doctrines of these gentlemen, is universally disseminated? We need not 

 indeed be very solicitous in regard to its denomination; certain it is, that the 

 power we are now treating about is, besides others, possessed of the properties 

 before-mentioned, and cannot but be of very great moment in the system of the 

 universe. 



LXIL Extracts of Father Augustin Hallersteins Astronomical Observations 

 made at Pekin in 1746 and 1747 . By Dr. Bevis. p. 376. 

 These are observations of the appulses and occultations of the planets and 

 fixed stars, made by the Jesuits at Pekin. They are not made with much accu- 

 racy, and are now of little or no use to science. 



* Since the communication of this paper to the Royal Society in February 1752, viz. in the suc- 

 ceeding summer, the truth of this doctrine is put out of all doubt by the discovery made in France, 

 in consequence of Mr. Franklin's hypothesis, of being able, by a proper apparatus, to collect the 

 electricity from the atmosphere during a thunder-storm, and to apply it to the usual experiments, 

 which demonstrates, that the matter of thunder and lightning and that of electricity are one and the 

 same. That the electricity did not proceed from the glass, or other electrics per se, as they had 

 been usually called, Mr. W. first discovered in the year 1746'. See Phil. Trans, vol. xliv, p. 713, 

 and explained further vol. xlv, p. 9^, et seq. and though the electric matter may be taken from the 

 atmosphere during a storm of thunder, or even when it is only charged with what are usually called 

 thunder clouds, that is, when the atmosphere is replete with heterogeneous phlogistic matter, yet it 

 must not be considered as coming from pure dry air, which, as I before mentioned, I conceive to 

 contain in its natural state scarcely any of the electric matter, and is the agent, by which we are en- 

 abled to communicate electricity to other bodies. — Orig. 



