VOL. XLIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 5g3 



great columns of water sucked up from the sea by the clouds. But he says he 

 never saw any such; nor could he find, on inquiry from many honest men, who 

 have sailed almost all the known seas, that they ever met any such; and there- 

 fore he does not believe that there are any such. There is indeed an appearance 

 something like their description, which may have given rise to their conjectures; 

 but this is no more than a very heavy shower from a very dense cloud, which is 

 drawn into a conical form, and a very narrow compass at bottom, before it arrives 

 at the sea, which it dashes with great violence in its fall. 



Dr. Birch, the secretary, by order of the Society, having desired to know the 

 experiments, by which Mr. E. found all ascending vapours and exhalations to be 

 electrified; answers, at first he only supposed they must be so, according to the 

 reasonings in his letter; but on trial, with a very simple apparatus, he convinced 

 himself that they were so. He extended a fine string of silk, 8 feet horizon- 

 tally, and from the middle suspended 2 pieces of such down as grows on the 

 turf-bogs, by 2 pieces of fine silk, about 1 2 inches each in length ; and then, 

 by rubbing a piece of sealing-wax on his waistcoat, he electrified the pieces of 

 down; and then brought sundry burning things under them, so as to let the 

 smoke pass in great plenty through and about them, to try whether the electric 

 fluid would run off with the smoke; but he observed that the down was but a 

 little affected by the passage of the smoke, and still remained electrified. He 

 then brought sundry steams from the spout of a boiling tea-kettle, and other- 

 wise, in the same manner, and still found that the down remained electrified. 

 He then breathed on them in great plenty, but found that the down still remained 

 electrified. He then joined the palms of his hands together, with the fingers 

 extended perpendicularly under the down, which still remained electrified ; though 

 the subtile effluvia, thrown off by perspiration, passed in great plenty through 

 the down; as may appear by holding one or both the hands in the same manner 

 under any light matter floating in the air, which will be driven upward, with as 

 great velocity as an electrified feather is by any electrified body held under it. 



The electricity remaining in the electri fied down after these experiments, made 

 it appear that the smoke and steams must be either electrics, or non-electrics 

 electrified. It was easy to suppose them non-electrics, as they arise from non- 

 electric bodies; and the more, because the highest electrics by a discontinuity 

 and comminution of their parts, long before they come to be as minute as the 

 particles of ascending vapour, become non-electrics, or conductors of electricity. 

 For glass, resin, wax, &c. all become non-electric, even in fusion. But to try 

 whether the steams, &c. were non-electrics, he only bedewed the wax and glass 

 with his breath, steams, &c. from his hand to the end of the wax and glass ; 

 and then touching the electrified down with the end of the wax or glass, he found 

 that the electrical fire immediately passed from the down into his hand, through 



VOL. X. 4 G 



