Corrections and Additions to the Preceding Papers
Page 2, Sect. 1. We since find, that the fire in the bottle is not contained in the non-electric, but in the glass. All that is after said of the top and bottom of the bottle, is true of the inside and outside surfaces, and should have been so expressed. See Sect. 16, p. 16.
Page 6, Line 13. The equilibrium will soon be restored but silently, etc. This must have been a mistake. When the bottle is full charged, the crooked wire cannot well be brought to touch the top and bottom so quick, but that there will be a loud spark; unless the points be sharp, without loops.
Ibid. line ult. Outside: add, such moisture continuing up to the cork or wire.
Page 12, line 14. By candle-light etc. From some observations since made, I am inclined to think, that it is not the light, but the smoke or non-electric effluvia from the candle, coal, and red-hot iron, that carry off the electrical fire, being first attracted and then repelled.
Page 13, line 15. Windmil wheels, &c. We afterwards discovered, that the afflux or efflux of the electrical fire, was not the cause of the motions of those wheels, but various circumstances of attraction and repulsion.
Page 16, line 21. Let A and B stand on wax, &c. We soon found that it was only necessary for one of them to stand on wax.
Page 19. in the title r. on.
Page 24, line 12. r. contact, line 24. confined.
Page 25, line 10. for stand r. hand.
Page 28, line 2. The consequence might perhaps be fatal, &c. We have found it fatal to small animals, but ’tis not strong enough to kill large ones. The biggest we have killed is a hen.
Page 31, line 20. Ringing of chimes, &c. This is since done.
Page 33, line 22. Fails after ten or twelve experiments. This was by a small bottle. And since found to fail after with a large glass.
Page 40, sect. 50, 51. Spirits must be heated before we can fire them, &c. We have since fired spirits without heating, when the weather is warm.
FINIS
BOOKS Printed and Sold by Edward Cave, at St. John’s Gate.
I. Geography Reform’d: Or, A new System of General Geography according to an accurate Analysis of the Science, augmented with several necessary Branches omitted by former Authors. In four Parts.
1. Of the Nature and Principles of Geography; its ancient and present State in all Nations, its Usefulness to Persons of all Professions, and the Method of studying it; with its Analysis or Division into Species, according to former Authors, and a new Plan, shewing the Errors and Defects of those by Varenius, Sanson, la Mattiniere, Pere Castel, etc.
2. Of Mathematical Geography and its Branches, Astronomical and Geometrical: Shewing the several Divisions of the Earth by Regions, Hemispheres, Zones, Climates, Meridians and Parallels, etc.
3. Historical Geography and its Species, Natural; Civil; Ecclesiastical; National; Periodical, ancient, middle, modern; Parallel and Critical.
4. Of Technical Geography and its Branches; Representatory, by Globes and Maps; Synoptical, by Tables; and Explanatory, by Systems and Dictionaries.
Footnotes
1 We suppose every particle of sand, moisture, or smoke, being first attracted and then repelled, carries off with it a portion of the electrical fire; but that the same still subsists in those particles, till they communicate it to something else; and that it is never really destroyed.—So when water is thrown on common fire, we do not imagine the element is thereby destroyed or annihilated, but only dispersed, each particle of water carrying off in vapour its portion of the fire, which it had attracted and attached to itself.
2 Our tubes are made here of green glass, 27 or 30 inches long, as big as can be grasped. Electricity is so much in vogue, that above one hundred of them have been sold within these four months past.
3 To charge a bottle commodiously through the coating, place it on a glass stand; form a communication from the prime conductor to the coating, and another from the hook to the wall or floor. When it is charged, remove the latter communication before you take hold of the bottle, otherwise great part of the fire will escape by it.
4 The river that washes one side of Philadelphia, as the Delaware does the other; both are ornamented with the summer habitations, of the citizens, and the agreeable mansions of the principal people of this colony.
5 An electrified bumper, is a small thin glass tumbler, near filled with wine, and electrified as the bottle. This when brought to the lips gives a shock, if the party be close shaved, and does not breathe on the liquor.
6 Thunder-gusts are sudden storms of thunder and lightning, which are frequently of short duration, but sometimes produce mischievous effects.
7 See the ingenious essays on electricity in the Transactions, by Mr Ellicot.
8 See the first sixteen Sections of my former Paper, called Farther Experiments, &c.
9 See § 10 of Farther Experiments, &c.
10 In the dark the electrical fluid may be seen on the cushion in two semi-circles or half-moons, one on the fore part, the other on the back part of the cushion, just where the globe and cushion separate. In the fore crescent the fire is passing out of the cushion into the glass; in the other it is leaving the glass, and returning into the back part of the cushion. When the prime conductor is apply’d to take it off the glass, the back crescent disappears.
11 Gilt paper, with the gilt face next the glass, does well.
12 See farther experiments, § 15.