i8 Mr. Cavallo’s Obfervations on 
body, contain at all times more or lefs eleCtric fluid than that 
quantity of it which it ought to contain, in order to be in an 
eleChical equilibrium with the bodies that furround it. 
At firft fight it may be thought quite immaterial to know, 
whether the eleCtric fluid is difperfed in the juft proportion among 
the various fubftances which are not looked upon as electri- 
fied, or whether it deviates in a fmall degree from that propor- 
tionate diftribution ; but it will hereafter appear, that one of 
thofe aflertions will lead us to the explanation of an interefting 
phenomenon in electricity, whereas the other does not admit 
of it ; betides, what is called fmall difference of the propor- 
tionate diftribution, infomuch as it does not affeCt our inftru- 
ments, may be fuflicient for feveral operations of nature, which 
it is our intereft to inveftigate. 
If we inquire what phenomena evince this altered diftribu- 
tion, or the actually eleCtrified ftate of all bodies, the pre- 
ceding obfervations will furnifh fome very unequivocal ones m 9 
efpecially that of the doubling plates made after my plan, 
which Ihewed to be eleCtrified even after having remained un- 
touched for a whole month, during which time they had 
been in communication with the ground ; for if each of them 
had contained an equal fhare of eleCtric fluid, the eleCtric 
atmofphere of one of them could not poffibly occafion a con- 
trary ele<ftricity in the other, and confequently no accumula- 
tion of that power could have happened. 
A great number of inftances are related in books on the 
O 
fubjeCt of eleftricity, and in the Philofophical TranfaCtions, 
of pieces of glafs, of fulphur, of fealing-wax, &c. having 
remained eleCtrified fo far as to affeCt an electrometer for 
months after they had been excited, or even touched ; but the 
following experiment will fhew, in a clearer manner, the great 
5 length 
