ON tLECTRlCAL CHARGES AND DISCHARGES. Q>^Q 



ing the Leyden phial, or a plate of a j^lass, which in fact Is Lcyden phial, 

 nothing more than a method of bringing the two coatings 

 nearer together than could be done in the air: but it intro- 

 duces itself generally into all the electricity of conducting A general cas?, 

 substances, as is easy to be observed ; for every electrified 

 body is surrounded with other bodies more or less distant, on 

 the surface of which, according to the established princi- 

 ples, the electricity of the former body can only occasion an 

 opposite electricity by acting through the intervening stra- 

 tum of air. We may truly say, therefore, that there is no 

 electricity but has opposite to it the contrary electricity, with 

 an intermediate insulating stratum. 



On the other hand, were we once convinced of the insula- Electricity not 



ting: stratvira in these circumstances beinjj in a peculiar state, an inherent 

 ..... . . . quahty hke 



distinguishing it from a simple medium through which the gravitation. 



electric forces exert themselves, it is natural to suppose, 

 that a more attentive examination of this state would give 

 us some idea of the manner in which those forces exert 

 themselves, which the labours of philosophers have hitherto 

 only confirmed; but wiiich, according to all appearance, are 

 not to be ascribed to an original property inherent in the 

 substances that exert them, as has been asserted with great 

 probability in respect to the Newtonian attraction of matter 

 in general. 



Now reflecting on certain facts, that Symraer, Cigna, Facts leading 

 ^ . ,r , ,1 , . , 1- 1 1 t ^1 • toaknowledfe 



Beccana, Volta, and others have estabhshed by their expe- ^f j^e state of 



riments, it has seemed to me, that we might deduce from the noncon- 

 them some inferences relative to the state of the insulating 

 stratum in question. The object of the present paper is to 

 detail the ideas, which these facts have suggested to me. 



Sect. II. The fundamental experiment*, which first Fundamental 



• The facts adduced in this and the following section are not new ; 

 neither indeed are the refiettions accompanying them wholly my own. 

 jEpinus, Haiiy, Volta, and others, have already given them at least in 

 part, and in a form more or less resembling that in which I exhibit them; 

 but perhaps they have not paid them sufficient attention in general. I 

 have thought it necessary, to resume this subject in a somewhat more 

 extended way, as an introduction to the ideas that constitute the princi- 

 pal object of this memoir, and which 1 begin to lay before the reader in 

 «ectioa IV. 



presents 



