relating to Atmospherical Electricity. 229 
during a disturbed state of the atmosphere. From the room 
in which the apparatus is placed I am seldom absent one hour, 
excepting the time of sleep ; but, when I leave it, the last 
thing i do at night is to examine the state of the electricity, 
and, if I find the rod unelectrified, I then place the Leyden 
bottle on the table S, with its knob nearly in contact with the 
ball N. The next morning, if I find this bottle charged, I 
write the kind of electricity it is charged with against the day 
in the journal, and add, by the night bottle. 
It is presumed, that the table is sufficiently obvious. The 
two columns for positive and negative electricity are used 
only for the first observation of each day. I use Fahrenheit's 
thermometer, suspended on the north outside of a bow-win- 
dow. The time of making the observation with it, and the 
barometer, and also of the direction of the wind, has usually 
been nine o'clock in the morning. 
Lastly, it may be useful to observe, that I have always 
found, when the rod is highly electrified, the lower though 
uninsulated part of the apparatus ( viz. the metallic connection 
of the bell P with the moist earth) to be in a contrary state of 
electricity to the upper and insulated part. See the 20th of 
May. 
Having made a memorandum of the several thunder-storms 
which have happened in divers parts of this island, according 
to information by letters, and from newspapers, I thought 
it useful to insert them in this journal, in order to show whe- 
ther some contemporaneous appearances in my apparatus 
might not be attributed to them. 
H h 
MDCCXCII. 
