CLIMATE of RUSSIA. . 2 



3/ 



toilet, on a chair placed on the bare floor, or on walking ill the 

 Great Duke's apartment, without any fpecies of apparatus to 

 cut off his communication with the naked boards ; but he was 

 in fact infulated in both fituations, as the inlaid floors were 

 become as completely ideo-electric as glafs or rofin, from the 

 high dried date to which they were reduced by an exficcating 

 quality of the atmofphere, (to be explained in the fequel) and 

 conftant waxing. Now, as I obferve, Sir, that in your paper 

 on our climate, you enter into fome reafoning on thefe pheno- 

 mena, I prefume my opinion on them will not be difagreeable 

 to you. 



The great difpofition, then, of air, and other bodies, to be- 

 come electric, during great degrees of cold continued for a cer- 

 tain time, always appeared to me to be fo eafily explained,* that 

 I looked upbn it as a iimple corollary of the bed known of the 

 laws of electric force, and as fuch, that it did not require 

 to be deduced from it in a formal manner. However, that 

 you may know on what L founded that fuppofition, I fliall ob- 

 ferve, That, fir/}, nothing indicates air, and other bodies, to 

 contain, during fevere froft, an atom of more electric matter 

 than "their natural quantity ; and they are certainly not in a 

 flate of fpontaneous electricity, becaufe, to render them elec- 

 tric, friction muft be employed, as at all other times ; fo that 

 all the uncommon appearances above mentioned are reduced to 

 this, That, by means of friction, bodies, in the above flate of 

 the atmofphere, become more eafily, and more ftrongly, electric, 

 than at any other time, which does not indicate a larger 

 quantity of electric matter, but a greater difpofition to re- 

 ceive it. 



idly, There is no neceffity, then, to enquire, why air, filk, 

 wool, hair, wood, i£c. contain a greater quantity of electric 

 matter in this than in another feafon, fince the fact does not 

 obtain \ fo that the queftion left for inveftigation is only, Why 

 they pofTefs, during fevere cold, a greater aptitude or difpofition 



to 



