212 Mr. Read’s Meteorological Journal , &c. 
exhibited ; being pofitive one minute, then negative for ano- 
ther, and the next returning again to politive. From often 
confidering this apparently whimfical changeablenefs in nature, 
I was at length induced to fufpeCl, what indeed was after- 
wards confirmed by aCtual experiment, viz. that fome of thefe 
changes are only apparent, and not real, they being occafioned 
not by the aCtual communication of a different fort of eleCtri- 
city, but merely by the action of eleCtrical atmofpheres ; thus, 
when an electrified cloud comes within a certain diftance of 
the rod, and before it comes near enough to impart to it fome 
of its own eleCtricity, the eleCtrical atmofphere of the former, 
agreeable to the well known laws of eleCtricity, will difturb 
the eleCtric fluid naturally belonging to the rod, and will con- 
fequently occafion feveral apparent changes in the electrometer, 
which changes an unexperienced obferver would attribute in- 
tirely to the change of eleCtricity in the clouds. 
This obfervation was evidently confirmed by the phenomena 
obferved on the 31ft of Auguft ; and thence it appears, that 
the real number of changes from pofitive to negative, or from 
negative to pofitive eleCtricity, cannot be fo great as it is ffiewn 
by the electrometer affixed to the rod. 
I cannot help lamenting with Signor Beccaria, that there 
are fo few high pointed rods ereCted to afcertain the eleCtrical 
Rate of the earth and atmofphere at all times ; but more par- 
ticularly during thunder ftorms. If there had been pointed 
rods, for inftance, at Whitehaven and Lancafter on the 6th of 
October, and well attended to at the time of the ftorm of 
lightning and thunder, which happened at both places nearly 
at the fame time, it would then have been known, whether 
the apparatus might not be pofitive at one place when it is 
negative at the other. 
