On the charging Capacity of Electrical Jars „ 193 
No. as. 
An Account of a JSTew Method of increasing the charging 
Capacity of coated Electrical Jars , discoveredby John 
Wingfield, Esquire , of Shrewsbury;* communicated 
by Mr. John Cuthbertson, with some Experiments 
by himself on that Subject f 
IN my treatise entitled Practical Electricity and Gal- 
vanism, page 103, I have said that breathing into coated 
electrical jars increased their charging capacity to such 
an astonishing degree, that their discharge would fuse 
four times the length of wire more than they could in or- 
dinary circumstances; which I proved by experiments 
147 and 150. Since that publication, large electrical 
batteries are become more general, and the number of 
jars increased; so that batteries containing thirty, sixty, 
and even a hundred jars are frequently met with; and, 
when so numerous, breathing into each jar is very disa- 
greeable ; and not only that, but in very dry states of the 
atmosphere, when most wanted, is even ineffectual, as 
those jars first breathed into lose that property which 
was produced in them by breathing, before the last can 
have obtained it : so that various other means have been 
tried; such as wetting the inside of the jars, and putting 
wet sponges into them, or by greasing and oiling the un- 
coated part in the inside ; all of which gave very uncer- 
tain results, till John Wingfield, esquire, communicated 
to me, he had discovered, that pasting of paper on the in- 
side and outside of the jars above the coating, had the- 
effect of preventing the jars from exploding to the out- 
* A gentleman who has lately very much distinguished himself, not only 
in the electrical science, but in all other branches of experimental philc* 
sophy. 
f Tilloch, vol. 36, p. 259 
Yol. ii, a a 
