An Essay to Shew the Cause of Electricity. Freke John

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      Those who try these Experiments, find, that in moist Weather this Power is less attainable than in a more clear Day; and therefore some may be liable to attribute that to the Apparatus, which may be better accounted for by the watry Particles in the Air; which may be liable to hinder the lambent Flame, by me supposed to be universally scatter’d, from uniting, by the Friction before-mention’d.

      As I have mention’d Friction, I cannot help observing how unphilosophical and unmeaning it is, for any one to advance, that Fire is caused by Friction; when I think he may as well say, that Water is caused by Pumping.

      We know, that a Cart or Coach-Wheel, for Want of Grease, by Friction will be set on Fire; and Fire-Canes, rubbed together smartly, will take Fire; but neither of these, I believe, nor any thing else, will beget or generate the Element of Fire. They must either collect it out of the Air, or else it must be lodged within them, as we find it to be in Steel in an eminent Degree: For, if you drop the Filings of Steel through the Flame of a Candle, it sends out the most fierce Fire of any thing in Nature.

      The Reason to be given why a greater Quantity of Fire is produced from Steel-Filings, than from any other Thing, I take to be owing to a larger Share of that Element which is impacted in it from its being made out of Iron long impregnated with Fire.

      Many other Bodies have actual Fire impacted in them, as Flints, and many other hard Stones and Metals; but whenever you produce Fire from Steel-Filings, you find that Steel melted: So when Fire is produced from Stones, and the like, each Spark is Part of that Stone burnt to a Calx.

      Now, as I am endeavouring to shew to you the natural Cohesion of Fire, and the Propensity there is in it to extend itself, I shall offer to your Consideration a very familiar Instance to prove it; which is that of the Snuff of a Candle just blown out. You cannot but have observ’d at how great a Distance from the Snuff the Flame will descend down the Smoke, and light it.

      I shall further take the Liberty to observe to you another Proof of this; which, I think, will not only shew a Propensity in Fire to cohere, but will greatly strengthen my Conjecture, that this Fire, produced in Electricity, is extracted from that I have supposed to be universally dispersed.

      A Person, who liv’d in the Town of Warham in Dorsetshire, in the Year 1703, informed me, that in the Night of the great Hurricane and high Wind, in the strongest Part of the Tempest, he saw from his Window, on the neighbouring Hills, great Bodies of Fire, swiftly passing over them on the Ground. – Now whence arose that Fire, if it came not from the Air impelling it into those Flakes? And its subsisting together in that Hurricane shews, I think, very plainly, that if its Cohesion had not been natural, the Wind would then have scatter’d it.

      Though I apprehend that the Four Elements of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air, may never have been increased or diminished, since the Great God of Order created them, yet I can also apprehend each of them unequally dispers’d in the Universe by various Causes and Events: And when this happens, those which were intended, when in their due Order, to make every thing happy and easy, in their disordered State will create nothing but Confusion.

      For Instance, the chief Use of Water seems intended, when descending in warm and gentle Showers, or flowing in kind and easy Streams, to chear and nourish all Kinds of Vegetation, as well in Trees and Plants, as in Herbs and Flowers: But suppose, by the Contrivance of Man, or by the Accidents of Nature, a large Quantity of it lodged on the Tops of high Hills, if it breaks its Bank, it will never stop, till it finds a natural resting Place; and in its Torrent it will overwhelm and destroy those Trees and Plants, with the Herbs and Flowers, it was intended to nourish.

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