If you will be pleased to reflect on the Air in this last described State, you need not expect, I think, to have much said concerning the Blights on Trees. It is true, somewhat may be consider’d with regard to the Insects frequently found on the blighted Leaves: But whether, when by the Blight the Leaves have been curl’d up, the Insects come there as to a proper Nidus, or whether they are brought in this Fire, which seems plainly to have burn’d the Leaves, I will not undertake to account for.
I am, &c.
APPENDIX.
The kind Reception this small Treatise has met with from the Public occasions the Printing this Second Edition of it.
It is, I confess, some Satisfaction to me, that my publishing it is not without Part of the Effect I hoped for; having been told by many, who have read it, that it gave them very new and satisfactory Ideas.
As to those who have read it, and say nothing of it, either from their Want of Apprehension, or their Fear of being obliged to alter their Sentiments concerning it, or from a worse Cause than either, I absolutely have no Concern about them.
There are those, I confess, who merit with me the highest Esteem, who, having read it, object to some Things, as fearing I have not conceiv’d them rightly; but this they have done with the Temper of Gentlemen. These I think deserve to be set right; which I will therefore attempt to do in the following Manner:
The First Objection they make is, That I have called Silk, Wax, &c. which do not ordinarily convey the electrical Power to other Bodies, non-electricable, or non-electrical; when other Writers have long since agreed to call them Electrics per se.
The Second Objection is, That what I have advanced, to prove that the Power of Electricity proceeds not from the Apparatus, but from the Air, seems to be overthrown; because, since I wrote my Book, there has been a new Experiment made, by placing the whole Apparatus on Wax, and also the Persons concerned in the Experiment, and by that means the Power is intercepted.