[ 39 ° ] 
- tricity. From this funnel, the electrified drops 
were received into a large infulated earthen difh ; 
acrofs which lay a long wire ; and from its end 
hung a pair of light cork-balls. On working the 
machine (after about ninety or an hundred turns 
of the winch, and when fifty or fixty drops had 
fallen into the difh) the balls feparated , and pre- 
fently diverged, to the diftance of half an inch. 
Then taking off the electricity, from all the bo- 
dies concerned, I blew the column of water 
. out of the capillary tube, replaced it in the 
bucket, pointing towards the funnel as before, 
and worked the machine again, to try whether 
the eleClricity, iffiiing from the fyphon, and 
paffing through the air, might not eleCtrify all 
the bodies, fo as to feparate the balls, without the 
jet of water; but no fuch event happened. I 
then replaced it, with the jet falling into the 
funnel as before ; when it fucceeded. I then 
tried it a fecond time, without the jet of water; 
and it failed. I thus repeated the experiment al- 
ternately, with, and without the jet, taking oft 
the electricity of the apparatus carefully between 
the trials ; till I was perfectly fatisfied, that the jet 
of water, received into the funnel, and falling 
from thence into the infulated difh below, was 
the medium by which the balls, hanging from the 
end of the wire placed therein, became electri- 
fied. Hence 1 inferred, that vapour from boiling 
water, &c. muft alfo be a conductor of electri- 
city, though probably in a lefs degree, as being 
more diffipated. Having fince repeated this ex- 
periment by receiving the electrified jet imme- 
diately 
