the Light of Bodies in a State of Comhufion .. 207 
fparks, when viewed at a diftance, bear a red-difh hue. Such 
are the explefions which have palled through, water, fpirits of 
wine, or any bad coik! ichor, when confined in a tube whole 
diameter is not more than an inch. The re&fon of thefe 
appearances feems to be,, that the weaker the Ipark or explofion 
is, the lefs is the light which efcapes ; and the' more vifible 
the effect of any medium which has a. power to abforb home of 
that light. 
The preceding obfervations concerning electrical light were 
the refult of my ..attempts to arrange, under general heads, 
the principal . iingularkies attending it. They may, perhaps, 
afiific others in determining how far they may have led my mind 
aftray in giving birth to a theory which I would now briefly 
defcri.be in a few queries. 
I. If we confide? all bodies as compounds, whofe. confHtuent' 
parts are kept together by attracting one another with different 
forces, can we avoid concluding, that the operations of that 
attractive force are regulated, not only by the quality, but the 
quantity likewife of thole component parts? If an union of a. 
certain number of one kind of particles, with a certain num- 
ber of a fecond and third kind of particles,, forms a particular 
body, mud not the bond which keeps that body together be 
weakened or ftrengthened by increafing or dimitiifhing any one 
of the different kinds of particles which enter into its confli- 
tution ? 
II. When, to the natural fhare of the electric fluid al- 
ready exifting in the body, a frefh quantity of the fame 
fluid is added, niuft not fame of the component parts of that 
body efcape ; or mufl not that attractive force which kept all 
together be fo far weakened as to let loofe Pome conftituent 
parts,.. 
1 
