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6 °. — When the ftockings are feparated, and in the 
dark, upon prefenting to them the point of one’s 
finger, or any fmali metallic body, rounded at the 
end. they exhibit the appearance of electrical fire or 
light, according to the negative or pvfitive flate of the 
flocking the objeCt is prefented to. With the black, 
at the diflance of two or three inches, there appears 
to dart from the end of one’s finger a fprig or pencil, 
as it were, of fiery fparks, which dilates in its pro- 
grefs, and flrikes againfl the furface of the flocking : 
at the fame time a crackling, or fnapping noife, is 
heard. When the firft difcharge is made, upon pre- 
fenting the finger to a frefh part of the flocking, the 
fame phenomenon is repeated, till you have traverfed 
the whole length of the flocking, which, when the 
finger moves flowly, ufually yields eight or ten dif- 
tindl difcharges, before it is divefled of its electricity.. 
With regard to the white flocking, the fame appear- 
ances hold ; but with this difference, that, inftead of 
fparks of fire iffuing from the finger, a little globule 
of white or blueifh light is feen at the point of it y 
and, when the electricity is flrong, that little body of 
light feems to break in an explofion between the 
flocking and the finger j and rather a hiffing than a 
crackling noife is heard. 
7 0 . — The electrical phial may be charged by the 
ftockings, either pofitively or negatively . , according as 
the wire from the neck of the phial is prefented to 
the white or the black ; and in the one, or the other 
cafe, the hiffing, or the crackling noife, is louder 
than when any common wire, or non-eleCtric body, 
is prefented : but if the electricity of the white flock- 
ing be thrown into the phial, and upon that the 
elec- 
