[ *99 ] 
perfect difcharge. I alio obferved, that the more 
interrupted the circuit was, the farther would the 
lateral explofion reach ; and that the electricity, 
which the full explofion communicated, was always 
politive when the jar was charged pofitively, and 
negative when it was charged negatively. The re- 
fult of the imperfeCt difcharge was always the 
reverfe. 
Infulating feveral bodies, and the jar too, charged 
pofitively, they all equally contracted pofitive elec#- 
tricity by the difcharge. 
In this date of the experiments, I had no idea of 
the poffibility of the lateral fpark not communicating 
electricity to the infulated body ; but I imagined that 
the kind of electricity communicated depended 
upon fome circumfiance in the difpofition of the 
apparatus, that I was not fufficiently aware of. 
At length recollecting, that this lafl experiment 
refembled, in fome reipeCts, that curious one of. 
profeffor Richman, mentioned in the Hiftory of 
Electricity, p. 272, in which it appeared, that when 
the coating of either fide of a plate of glafs com- 
municated with the ground, the oppolite electri- 
city of the other fide was more vigorous; I was 
fatisfied that the negative electricity of the bodies 
that formed the circuit in the imperfeCt difcharge, 
was produced by the greater difficulty with which 
the outfide of the jar was fupplied, than the infide 
was ditcharged ; lb that the outfide was compara- 
tively in a ftate of infulation, and therefore would 
communicate negative eleChicity to all bodies with- 
in its reach. And from this 1 was led to conclude, 
that, provided the jar was infulated, and the infide 
Was 
