Observations on a series of electrical experiments / By Dr. Hoadly, and Mr. Wilson.

  • Benjamin Hoadly
Date:
1759
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on a series of electrical experiments / By Dr. Hoadly, and Mr. Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    74/96 page 70
    [ 7° ] fufficiens copia cxperimentorum, quibus leges a&ionum hujus fpiritus accurate determinate et monftrari debent. No one, we think, can read this paragraph, after having confidered the appearances in the experiments defcribed above, without recoliedling inftances in feme one or other of them, of almofc all the effedts of this fluid, enumerated in it: and agreeing with us, that the other appearances among eledlrified bodies, as well as that of their repelling and attracting light bodies that are near them, may all of them arife from the force and aftion of this fluid, on the component particles of the bodies ; on the rays of light within them , and on the air they are in j and the reaction of thefe upon the aether. When a flint and fteel are truck together with fuffi- dent force and velofity, a fpark of fire, as we call it, is produced, which readily fires gunpowder, or lights tin¬ der : but foon cools, if left to itfelf. Now if fuch a fpark be caught on a fheet of paper, and examined in a microfcope, it will be found to be a piece either of the flint or of the fteel, truck off, fo exactly fpherical, and poliflied, that the windows of the room may be feen in it in the fame manner as they are in a large poliflied fphere of metal or glafs: and they could not be fo fpherical, and well poliflied, as they are found to he, if they had not been melted and kept in this form by the cohaefion of their component particles. In either of thefe cafes, a piece of flint or fteal is evidently feperated from the body, and its component particles put into fuch agitations among each other, as to throw
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