60 Additional Notes. 



2. The curious circumstance of electric condensation appears from 

 the violence of the shock of the coated jar compared with the strongest 

 spark from an insulated conductor, though the latter possesses a much 

 greater surface; when vitreous electric ether is thrown on one side 

 of a coated jar, it attracts the resinous electric ether of the other side 

 of the coated jar; and the same occurs, when resinous ether is thrown 

 on one side of it, it attracts the vitreous ether of the other side of it, 

 and thus the vitreous electric ether on one side of the jar, and the 

 resinous ether on the other side of it become condensed, that is accu- 

 mulated in less space, hy their reciprocal attraction of each other. 



This condensation of the two electric ethers owing to their reci- 

 procal attraction appears from another curious event, that the thinner 

 the glass jar is, the stronger will the charge be on the same quantity 

 of surface, as then the two ethers approaching nearer without their 

 intermixing attract each other stronger, and consequently condense 

 each other more. And when the glass jar is very thin the reci- 

 procal attractive powers of the vitreous and resinous ether attract 

 each other so violently as at length to pass through the glass by rup- 

 turing it, in the same manner as a less forcible attraction of them 

 ruptures and passes through the plate of air in the production of sparks 

 from the prime conductor. 



As these two ethers on each side of a charged coated jar so power- 

 fully attract each other, when a communication is made between them 

 by some conducting substance as in the common mode of discharging 

 an electrised coated jar, they reciprocally pass to each other for the 

 purpose of combining, as some chemical fluids are known to do; as 

 when nitrous gas and oxygen gas are mixed together; whence as these 

 fluids pass both ways to intermix with each other, and then explode; 

 a bur appears on each side of a quire of paper well pressed together, 

 when a strong electric shock is passed through it; which is occasioned 

 by their explosion, like a train of gunpowder, and consequent emission 

 of some other ethereal fluid, either those of heat and light or of some 

 new one not yet observed. Whence it becomes difficult to explain, ac- 

 cording to the theory of Dr. Franklin, which way the electric fluid 

 passed, and which side of the coated jar contained positive and which 

 the negative charge according to that doctrine. 



