C 558 3 
tunity of obferving them, becaufe the effects there 
were more confiderable than at my apartment, on 
account of the fituation. He even remarked to-day 
very evident figns of electricity, although there was 
neither lightning nor thunder, but only the fky co- 
ver’d with fuch thick clouds, as feemed to forebode 
a fiorm. 
Monf. Le Roy, a member of the Academy of 
Sciences, who lives near me, has repeated alfo a 
great number of thefe experiments and obfervations, 
by only making ufe of a pole of wood twenty-five 
feet long, about which he turned an iron wire in 
form of a ferew. 
This, Sir, is the Rate of thefe matter* with its at 
prefent, which I am very far from thinking that wo 
are arrived at the complete knowledge of I have 
reafons for fufpecting, that there frequently happens 
a natural electricity in the atmofphere. It may be, 
that thunder is only a circumftance, and not the ef- 
ficient caufe, of all thefe effects, which now prefent 
themfelves to us ; and it is not impofiible, but that 
the great my fiery of vegetation has great connection 
with this natural electricity. Time and obferva- 
tions may throw fome light upon thefe important 
quefiions. 
XCIII. 
