28^ ON ELECTRICAL CHARGES AND DISCHARGES. 



more than is necessary from establislied custom, I shall saj^^ 

 that a body is eleetr'ijied, or endued or animated with electri- 

 city, when :(he electricity remains on this surface without oc- 

 casioning- in the body to which it belongs the modification I 

 have spoken of, whether the body be a conductor or an insu- 

 lator; and with respect to the surface of the body that un- 

 dergoes this modification, I shall merely say, that the elec- 

 tricity is applied to it, which can only take place for an in- 

 Cba^cl plate sulating body. Thus in a charged plate of glass it is the 

 coatings that I consider as electrified; but the electricity of 

 the interior face of each coating is applied to the face it 

 coats. It may happen, that an electric itj' at the limits of 

 two bodies may affect these bodies equally with the modifi- 

 cation in question ; and then this electricity may be consi- 

 dered at once with nspect to each of these bodies as belong- 

 ing to their contiguous faces, or app'ied to them. 



The name of electric charge will continue to indicate, aiF 

 it has hitherto done, the state of an insulating stratu)i> inter- 

 posed between two electricities of opposite kinds, namely, 

 that to the opposite faces of which these electricities are ap- 

 plied, a state which is the subject of the present paper. 

 Wbat takes Sect. V. The facts, that have led us to form an idea of 



place in the the electrical charge, necessarily give us likewise more accu- 

 rate ideas of what passes in discharging a charged insulating 

 bod}'. It is clear from what we have seen to take place, in 

 the two plates of glass united, that the discharge only obli- 

 ges the opposite electricities, which supported each other al- 

 ternately through each of the strata into which the insulating 

 body might be conceived to be divided, to become the elec- 

 tricities of the Jac/'s of these strata, to which they were re- 

 spectively applied before the discharge, and to rest against 

 each other in pairs in a state of perfect repose ; namely, that 

 of each face against that of the contiguous face of the next 

 stratum; so that, instead of an infinite number of charged 

 but very thin strata, the result is an infinite number of 

 Tlie extreme V'^^^^ ^^ electricities neutralized by contact. 

 electricities do What has been said in speaking of two plates might lead 

 "r'h othe^b "^ *^ suppose, that this transformation, this different arrange- 

 tlie comuuini- meiit of electricities by pairs, was the consequence of the 

 extreme electricities of the whole stratum, that is to»ay, the 



two 



c4iion. 



