[ 202 ] 
I found, however, afterwards, that much depend- 
ed upon the quantity of furface in the coating, and 
the bodies connected with them, as containing more 
of that redundant eleCtricity, the effect of which was 
feen in the laft mentioned experiment. For when 
I difcharged the jar, ftanding in contaCt with the 
prime conductor, the tendency to the communication 
of pofitive eleCtricity was fo great, that, in that fitu- 
ation, the infulated circuit contracted ftrong pofitive 
eleCtricity, when, every thing elfe remaining the 
fame, except removing it from the conductor, and 
then making the difcharge, it contracted no electri- 
city at all. 
Being now perfectly matter of the electricity of 
the circuit in eleCtrical explofions, and being able, in 
two different methods, to give which of the two 
electricities I pleafed ; I imagined that, if I could fo 
balance them, as to communicate neither, there 
would be no lateral fpark, as in the abovementioned 
experiments ; but in this I was abfolutely miftakem 
For, 
In the firft place, when, after fetting the charged 
jar upon the {band, I took off, as near as I could 
guefs, one half of the redundant eleCtricity of the 
infide, and left both fides equally electrified (as ap- 
peared by the equal attraction of the pith balls to 
them both), the difcharge of the jar through a circuit 
of good conductors did not, indeed, communicate 
the Jeaft fenfible eleCtricity to the circuit, but the 
lateral explofion was almoft as manifeft as before. 
The pith balls, hung upon the rod that received it, 
never feparated. 
In 
