^^4" <'N ELECTRICAL CHARflES AND DISCHARGES. 



two plate here, than to relate the simplest case. Let us snppose, that, 



jkss dischnrg- afj-ej. havincr char"red two plates of elass, those faces are 

 edasa single " » '^ , , • , . , 



,iie. brought into contact, which are charged with opposite elec- 



tricities, being previously divested of tKeir coating: and a 

 communication between their exterior coatings is then esta>» 

 blished; in other words, that the two plates thus joined are 

 discharged as if they were a single plate. The plates thus 

 joined will no longer give any sign of electricity^ and the 

 two exterior electricities are destroyed by this oommunica- 

 tion, as if there were no others. As to the interior electri- 

 cities, it seems at die first view, that thej- must have been 

 annihilated at the same time by their mutual communica- 

 tion, the dependence cf each on one of the electricities of 

 the exterior faces having ceased. But this is not the case.* 

 these two electricities being in contact must niereiv neutra- 

 lise each other, according to the principles of quiescent elec- 

 tricities, by this contact, as soon as the anterior electricities, 

 having destroyed each other, cease to maintain them sepa- 

 rately. They become imperceptible in consequence of this 

 neutralization only, and ought consequently to oppose each 

 other like those of the ribands mentioned above, when vwe 

 separate the plates again. And this is what experience in 

 fact demonstrates: for, if we attempt to separate the tw>o 

 plates after having discharged them together, we find a re- 

 sistence as much superior to that displayed by insulating bo- 

 dies of a thin texture under similar circumstances, as the 

 electricities that concurred to form the charge of the two 

 plates, and which are here converted into quiescent electri- 

 cities to be revivified by separation, are superior to those that 

 could be imparted to the bodies of a thin texture. And if 

 we overcome this resistance, and actually separate the two 

 plates, the two electricities of the interior faces will resume 

 their intensity, and their tendency to decompose the natu- 

 ral electric stateof the surrounding bodies, and in particular 

 of the interior face of the coatings with which the exterior 

 surfaces of the two plates are covered : whence it follows 

 from the known principles, that the exterior faces of these 



see what he says on the subject in his Electricisme artifiziale. The theory 

 Volta has given of his elcctiophorus and condenser likewise regards tjie 

 <ame subject. I shall have o«:casiou to notice these hereafter, 



coating^ 



