This might be an objection, if the electrical fire was as sluggish and inactive as air. Air takes a sensible time to diffuse itself equally, as is manifest from winds which often blow for a considerable time together from the same point, and with a velocity even in the greatest storms, not exceeding, as it is said, sixty miles an hour: but the electric fire seems propagated instantaneously, taking up no perceptible time in going very great distances. It must then be an inconceivably short time in its progress from an electrified to an unelectrified body, which, in the present case, can be but a few inches apart: but this small portion of time is not sufficient for the elasticity of the air to exert itself, and therefore the column aforesaid must be in a denser state than its neighbouring air.
About the velocity of the electric fire more is said below, which perhaps may more fully obviate this objection. But let us have recourse to experiments. Experiments will obviate all objections, or confound the hypothesis. The electric spark, if the foregoing be true, will pass through a vacuum in a right line. To try this, let a wire be fixed perpendicularly on the plate of an air pump, having a leaden ball on its upper end; let another wire, passing through the top of a receiver, have on each end a leaden ball; let the leaden balls within the receiver, when put on the air pump, be within two or three inches of each other: the receiver being exhausted, the spark given from a charged phial to the upper wire will pass through rarefied air, nearly approaching to a vacuum, to the lower wire, and I suppose in a right line, or nearly so; the small portion of air remaining in the receiver, which cannot be entirely exhausted, may possibly cause it to deviate a little, but perhaps not sensibly, from a right line. The spark also might be made to pass through air greatly condensed, which perhaps would give a still more crooked direction. I have not had opportunity to make any experiments of this sort, not knowing of an air-pump nearer than Cambridge, but you can easily make them. If these experiments answer, I think the crooked direction of lightning will be also accounted for.
With respect to your letters on electricity, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *. Your hypothesis in particular for explaining the phenomena of lightning is very ingenious. That some clouds are highly charged with electrical fire, and that their communicating it to those that have less, to mountains and other eminencies, makes it visible and audible, when it is denominated lightning and thunder, is highly probable: but that the sea, which you suppose the grand source of it, can collect it, I think admits of a doubt: for though the sea be composed of salt and water, an electric per se and non-electric, and though the friction of electrics per se and non-electrics, will collect that fire, yet it is only under certain circumstances, which water will not admit. For it seems necessary, that the electrics per se and non-electrics rubbing one another, should be of such substances as will not adhere to, or incorporate with each other. Thus a glass or sulphur sphere turned in water, and so a friction between them, will not collect any fire; nor, I suppose, would a sphere of salt revolving in water; the water adhering to, or incorporating with those electrics per se. But granting that the friction between salt and water would collect the electrical fire, that fire, being so extremely subtle and active, would be immediately communicated, either to those lower parts of the sea from which it was drawn, and so only perform quick revolutions; or be communicated to the adjacent islands or continent, and so be diffused instantaneously through the general mass of the earth. I say instantaneously, for the greatest distances we can conceive within the limits of our globe, even that of the two most opposite points, it will take no sensible time in passing through: and therefore it seems a little difficult to conceive how there can be any accumulation of the electrical fire upon the surface of the sea or how the vapours arising from the sea should have a greater share of that fire than other vapours.
That the progress of the electrical fire is so amazingly swift, seems evident from an experiment you yourself (not out of choice) made, when two or three large glass jars were discharged through your body. You neither heard the crack, was sensible of the stroke, nor, which is more extraordinary, saw the light; which gave you just reason to conclude, that it was swifter than sound, than animal sensation, and even light itself. Now light (as astronomers have demonstrated) is about six minutes passing from the sun to the earth; a distance, they say, of more than eighty millions of miles. The greatest rectilinear distance within the compass of the earth is about eight thousand miles, equal to its diameter. Supposing then, that the velocity of the electric fire be the same as that of light, it will go through a space equal to the earth's diameter in about 2/60 of one second of a minute. It seems inconceivable then, that it should be accumulated upon the sea, in its present state, which, as it is a non-electric, must give the fire an instantaneous passage to the neighbouring shores, and they convey it to the general mass of the earth. But such accumulation seems still more inconceivable when the electrical fire has but a few feet depth of water to penetrate, to return to the place from whence it is supposed to be collected.
Your thoughts upon these remarks I shall receive with a great deal of pleasure. I take notice that in the printed copies of your letters several things are wanting which are in the manuscript you sent me. I understand by your son, that you had writ, or was writing, a paper on the effect of the electrical fire on loadstones, needles, &c. which I would ask the favour of a copy of, as well as of any other papers on electricity, written since I had the manuscript, for which I repeat my obligations to you.
I am, &c.
J. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[72] Mr. Badouin. Editor.