t 428 ] 
fame remark in railing their eleCtrical kites 
I have made many obfervations on the elec- 
tricity of the atmofphere, of which I kept a jour- 
nal more than a year : but I have no defire to pubr 
liih it ; as I hope the curious in thefe matters will 
be favoured with a much more accurate one, by 
gentlemen better qualified to undertake it. 
It may not perhaps be improper to obferve, that 
in the courfe of my experiments upon the electri- 
city of fogs, I have frequently obierved the balls 
to diver ge full two inches : but this never happened 
except in a thick one; when the wind was S. W., 
and the mercury in the thermometer, under 40. 
In the inftances I met with, where I could difcover 
no eleCtricity in fuch a fog, though the mercury 
flood at 35 or 36, the wind was always N. E. 
The apparatus I ufed, confided of a light rod about 
feven feet long, furnilhed with a box containing a 
pair of light cork balls, hung by linen threads, fe- 
ven inches long. This rod was placed in a piece 
of wood, (over the top of one of the higheft win- 
dows in the houfe, mod remote from other build- 
ings) properly fitted to receive it. The end of the 
rod, from which the balls were fufpended, was 
elevated to an angle of about forty-five degrees. 
Another rod, of equal length, was provided with a 
tin focket, into which went a long, fubdantial, 
dick of hard fealing wax, or fhell lac; which being 
excited, and prcje&ed out at the window, was 
brought near the bails; and thus readily, deter- 
mined the kind of eleClricity in the atmofphere, 
( p ) See Dr. Priestley’s Hiftory of Electricity, fecond edi- 
tion, p. 333. Experiments by Mr. de romas, 
2 But 
