ich these electricities have for each other. But, whether
this hypothesis be altogether founded on truth or not, it is impossible
to question the great influence of electricity in chemical combinations.

EMILY.

So, that we must suppose that the two electricities always attract each
other, and thus compel the bodies in which they exist to combine?

CAROLINE.

And may not this be also the cause of the attraction of cohesion?

MRS. B.

No, for in particles of the same nature the same electricities must
prevail, and it is only the different or opposite electric fluids that
attract each other.

CAROLINE.

These electricities seem to me to be a kind of chemical spirit, which
animates the particles of bodies, and draws them together.

EMILY.

If it is known, then, with which of the electricities bodies are united,
it can be inferred which will, and which will not, combine together?

MRS. B.

Certainly. --I should not omit to mention, that some doubts have been
entertained whether electricity be really a material agent, or whether
it might not be a power inherent in bodies, similar to, or, perhaps
identical with, attraction.

EMILY.

But what then would be the electric spark which is visible, and must
therefore be really material?

MRS. B.

What we call the electric spark, may, Sir H. Davy says, be merely the
heat and light, or fire produced by the chemical combinations with which
these phenomena are always connected. We will not, however, enter more
fully on this important subject at present, but reserve the principal
facts which relate to it to a future conversation.

Before we part, however, I must recommend you to fix in your memory the
names of the simple bodies, against our next interview.

CONVERSATION II.

ON LIGHT AND HEAT OR CALORIC.

CAROLINE.

We have learned by heart the names of all the simple bodies which you
have enumerated, and we are now ready to enter on the examination of
each of them successively. You will begin, I suppose, with LIGHT?

MRS. B.

Respecting the nature of light we have little more than conjectures. It
is considered by most philosophers as a real substance, immediately
emanating from the sun, and from all luminous bodies, from which it is
projected in right lines with prodigious velocity. Light, however, being
imponderable, it cannot be confined and examined by itself; and
therefore it is to the effects it produces on other bodies, rather than
to its i