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increased frequency of the alternations of positive and negative 
electricity. 
All observers agree that the air is negative on the approach 
of great storms, and negative or alternately negative and 
positive in unsettled weather, and the Author remarks that 
such storms are almost invariably accompanied by convulsive 
diseases, or diseases of the nervous centres in some form; and 
in support of his statement he quotes many cases from his 
notes of the storms of the last twelve months, but more 
particularly the succession of gales which occurred from the 
21st to the 30tli of October, 1859 (in one of which the 
“Royal Charter” was lost), the gales of the 25th, 26th, and 
27th of May last, which were accompanied with frequent hail 
showers; and those of the 24th of August and four following 
days. Other forms of disease accompany such atmospheric 
conditions, such as premature uterine action, epistaxis, and 
diarrhoea, with vomiting and cramps; and cases of this class 
are quoted by the Author from his notes ; and he remarks 
that it would then appear that negative electricity plays an 
important part in the above atmospheric conditions and 
morbid actions. After describing the electrical phenomena 
of continued heavy raids, and of thunder storms and heavy 
showers of hail and snow, the Author observes that as the 
electrical tension of the clouds which produce these storms 
and showers is always strong, it must have a coercive force 
upon all bodies at the earth’s surface; and that as, according 
to our notions of electrical action, the moment the influence 
of the inducing body is removed, a re-arrangement of the 
electricities in the induced body takes place, we cannot well 
avoid the conclusion that during the period of induction, and 
