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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 January 2013
The few facts we possess relative to the chemical agency of atmospheric electricity, and a certain degree of obscurity connected with these facts, as pointed out by Mr Faraday, in commenting on the late Mr Barry's results, published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1831, have induced me to institute some experiments on the subject, with the hope of acquiring additional information.
Reflecting on the manner in which, in certain instances, the great experiment of Franklin, in apparent proof of the identity of common and of atmospheric electricity, had been repeated, especially in our own country; reflecting also on the experiments of M. Colladon on atmospheric electricity, made by means of a lightning-conductor,—it appeared to me not improbable that results might be witnessed of some interest by substituting for an electrical kite, the means employed by Mr Barry, an insulated wire raised a few feet above the summit of any building of moderate height.
page 440 note * Philosophical Transactions, 1833, p. 42.
page 440 note † On the Chemical Action of Atmospheric Electricity, by Barry, Alexander, Esq. F.L.S.Google Scholar
page 440 note ‡ Phil. Trans, abridged, vol. x. p. 303.
page 440 note § Annales de Chimie et de Physique, tome xxx. p, 72.
page 444 note * In the abstract of Mr Brande's Bakerian Lecture for 1819, though, not that can find in the lecture itself, it is stated, that “the brilliant light occasioned by the discharge of the voltaic apparatus presently blackens the chloride of silver.”—(Abstracts of the Philosophical Transactions, vol. ii. p. 121.) I have exposed this compound moist, just made, to the intensely bright light of a succession of flashes of very vivid lightning, during a thunder-storm by night of unusual violence, even in Malta, and which lasted several hours, without the least change of its colour. If the above statement be correct (and it probably is, as Mr Brande, in 1819, was senior Secretary of the Royal Society, by whom the abstracts of papers are I understand generally made), we have here apparently another point of difference between voltaic and atmospheric electricity.
page 445 note * Phil. Trans. 1833, p. 43.