OK ELECTRICAL CHARGES AND DISCHARGES. g33 



it as it were: and hence the name of claiming electricity 

 felectricitas vindexj, which Beccaria gave the electricity 

 thus apparently reproduced. The adhesion of the two sur- 

 faces on their con*^act however had led others to presuoie, 

 that the electricity was merely latent, and not annihilated. 



This question, which presented no clew to its elucidation. The electiicliy 



and which was reduced almost to a dispute about words, or ^^ ^" act on y 



r quiewjenti 



to a different mode of viewing the same object, while the 



phenomenon in consideration was examined separately, 

 solves itself now we perceive its connection with known prin- 

 ciples : for it is demonstrated a priori^ that the electricity in 

 this case must lose its intensity, and become imperceptible, 

 though it is not really destroyed; We may express this 

 state by the term of quiescent electricity, or electricity at 

 rest. 



Sect. III. Let us now pursue the inquiry. I have said. When the in- 

 that it is only with insulatinor substances of a thin texture ''^'^'^^'""8 '^P'^' 



•' ° _ _ conciLictor is 



we can observe the phenomena of which I have spoken in thick ihe phe- 

 all their simpllcitY. It is easy to conceive with respect to "O'^ena appear 

 compact bodies capable of bemg carged with electricity, as 

 for instance two plates of glass, that the dependance, which 

 the electricity of one of the faces has or may have on the 

 electricity of the face opposite to it, with which it forms or 

 may form the electric charge of the plate, must necessarily 

 render more complex the phenomena relative to the state of 

 rest, and to the revivification of the electricity of the faces, 

 that are brought into contact or separated. I shall not en- 

 ter here into the details the subject would require. Though 

 several natural philosophers have already engaged in re- 

 searches of this kind, much remains to be done, to,illustrate 

 it completely*. Nothing more, is necessary for my purpose 



here, 



♦The first experiments on quiescent electricity, and its revivification in History of 

 compact bodies, were made by the Jesuits of Pekin, and communicated the experi- 

 to the Academy of Petersburg in 1755. These gave occasion to a paper "^^^^ *^'i ^">* 

 by Spinas in the 7th vol. of the New Transactions of that Academy. 

 Symmer treated the same subject in his fourth paper, read to the Koyal 

 Society in 1759. Lastly Beccaria entered into it very largely in his book 

 entitled " Observation's atque Experimenta, quibus Electricitas vindex 

 late consUluitur, and explicatur. Tuiin, 17C9. The reader may likewise 



see 



