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to the polar regions. Every drop brings down some electiicity with it; the 
same is done by snow or hail, the electricity so descending, in temperate 
climates, is received and imbibed by the earth. If the clouds are not suffi¬ 
ciently discharged by the gradual operation, they sometimes discharge them¬ 
selves suddenly by striking into the earth, where the earth is fit to receive 
their electricity. The earth in temperate and warm climates is generally fit 
to receive it, being a good conductor. 
The humidity contained in all the equatorial clouds that reach the polar 
regions, must there be condensed, and fall in snow. The great cake of ice 
that eternally covers those regions may be too hard frozen to permit the elec¬ 
tricity, descending with that snow, to enter the earth. It may therefore be 
accumulated upon that ice. The atmosphere being heavier in the polar 
regions than in the equatorial, will there be lower; as well from that cause, 
as from the smaller effect of the centrifugal force: consequently the distance 
of the vacuum above the atmosphere will be less at the poles than elsewhere, 
and probably much less than the distance (upon the surface of the globe) 
extending from the pole to those latitudes in which the earth is so thawed as 
to receive and imbibe electricity. May not then the great quantity of elec¬ 
tricity brought into the polar regions by the clouds, which are condensed 
there, and fall in snow, which electricity would enter the earth, but cannot 
penetrate the ice; may it not, as a bottle overcharged, break through that 
low atmosphere, and run along into the vacuum over the air towards the 
of meteors. Upon the approach of the winter months, as they are called, under the line, the sky, 
fiom a fiery biightness, begins to be oveicast, and the whole horizon seems wrapped in a muddy 
cloud. Mists and vapours still continue to rise; and the air, which so lately before was clear and 
elastic, now became humid, obscure, and stifling: the fogs became so thick, that the light of the sun 
seems in a manner excluded; nor would its presence be known, but for the intense and suffocating 
heat of its beams, which dart through the gloom, and, instead of dissipating, only serve to increase 
the mist. After this preparation, there follows an almost continual succession of thunder, rain, and 
tempests. During this dreadful season, the streets of cities flow like rivers, and the whole country 
wears the appearance of an ocean. The inhabitants often make use of this opportunity to lay in a 
stock of fresh water for the rest of the year; as the same cause which pours down the deluo- e at one 
season, denies the kindly shower at another. The thunder which attends the fall of these rains is 
much more terrible than what we are generally acquainted with. With us, the flash is seen at some 
distance, and the noise shortly after ensues; our thunder generally rolls on one quarter of the sky and 
one stroke pursues another. But here it is otherwise; the whole sky seems illuminated with unre¬ 
mitted flashes of lightning; every part of the air seems productive of its own thunders ; and every cloud 
produces its own shock. The strokes become so thick, that the inhabitants can scarce mark the inter¬ 
vals; but all is one unremitted roar of elementary confusion. Vide Pace’s Geographical Ex¬ 
tracts, a very amusing and instructive work. 
