SJH PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1753. 



May 7, Sun's preceding limb passed the meridian at 1 1*" 54' 38'' 



Subsequent limb passed the meridian 11 56 514- 



May 8, Sun's preceding limb passed the meridian at 11 54 34-i- 



Subsequent limb passed the meridian at 11 56 47-t 



and this clock, by repeated observations, was not found to have varied above 1* 

 since the 22d of February last to the day of observation. 



In the observatory of the Earl of Macclesfield, at Shirburn Castle in Oxford- 

 shire, the total egress was observed at 1 0'' 8' 1 1 '', apparent time. Latitude of 

 Shirburn Castle is 5 1° SQ' 25", and its longitude is 4*" 0* of time, west of Green- 

 wich observatory. 



XXXII. Account of a Treatise, inlitled, " Letters conceriiing Electricity ; in 



" which the latest Discoveries on this Subject^ and the Consequences which may 



be deduced from them, are examined; by the Abb d Nollet, Mem. oj the Royal 



Acad, of Sciences of Paris, F. R. S. &c." Extracted and Translated from 



the French, by Mr. William Watson, F. R. S. p. 201. 



This treatise is the production of a great master on the subject of electricity : 

 he has already published two volumes expressly on it, besides several memoirs 

 among the works of the Royal Acad, of Sciences at Paris, as well as several 

 valuable papers to the r. s. 



The discoveries made in the summer of the year 1752 will make it memo- 

 rable in the history of electricity. These have opened anew field to philoso-- 

 phers, and have given them room to hope, that what they have learned before in 

 their museums, they may apply, with more propriety than they hitherto could 

 have done, in illustrating the nature and effects of thunder; a phenomenon 

 hitherto almost inaccessible to their inquiries. " 



These considerations have induced our author to examine with care, what may 

 truly be concluded from the experiments proposed by Mr. Franklin of Philadel- 

 phia, and since carried into execution in France, and elsewhere, in regard to the 

 electricity of the clouds during a storm ; by weighing every circumstance, and 

 comparing the magnitude of the effects, with the more than apparent insuffici- 

 ency of the means, which have been employed to produce them. He thinks, he 

 sees clearly, that considering the electrization of pointed bodies as a proof of 

 lessening the matter of thunder, is abusing a real discovery to flatter ourselves 

 with a vain hope ; and it is chiefly to dissipate this error, if it yet subsists, that 

 determined our author to print, in the work before us, some reflexions, which 

 he had made at first only for himself, and a few persons, to whom he was de- 

 sirous of communicating his opinion. 



Mr. Franklin's treatise on electricity contains many very curious experiments ; 

 but the deductions from them being different from those which the Abbe Nollet 



