62 Additional Notes. 



IX. Of Galvanic Electricity. 



1. The conductors of electricity, as well as the nonconductors of 

 it, have probably a portion of the vitreous and resinous ethers com- 

 bined with them, and have also another portion of these ethers diffused 

 round them, which forms their natural or spontaneous adhesive atmo- 

 spheres; and which exists in different, proportions round them corre- 

 spondent in quantity to those which are combined with them, but 

 opposite in kind. 



These adhesive spontaneous atmospheres of electricity are shown 

 to consist of different proportions or quantities of the electric ethers 

 by Mr. Bennet's Doubler of Electricity, as mentioned in his work 

 called New Experiments on Electricity, sold by Johnson. In this 

 work, p. 91, the blade of a steel knife was evidently, in his language, 

 positive, compared to a soft iron wire which was comparatively nega- 

 tive; so the adhesive electricity of gold, silver, copper, brass, bis- 

 muth, mercury, and various kinds of wood and stone, were what he 

 terms positive or vitreous; and that of tin and zinc, what he terms 

 negative or resinous. 



Where these spontaneous atmospheres of diffused electricity sur- 

 rounding two conducting bodies, as two pieces of silver, are perfectly 

 similar, they probably do not intermix when brought into the vicinity 

 of each other; but if these spontaneous atmospheres of diffused elec- 

 tricity are different in respect to the proportion of the two ethers, or 

 perhaps in respect to their quantity, in however small degree either 

 of these circumstances exists, they may be made to unite but with 

 some difficulty ; as the two metallic plates, suppose one of silver, and 

 another of zinc, which they surround, must be brought into absolute 

 or adhesive contact; or otherwise these atmospheres may be forced 

 together so as to be much flattened, and compress each other where 

 they meet, like small globules of quicksilver when pressed together, 

 but without uniting. 



This curious phenomenon may be seen in more dense electric 

 atmospheres accumulated by art, as in the following experiment 

 ascribed to Mr. Canton. Lay a wooden skewer the size of a goose- 



