into
vicinity with each other with a nonconductor between them; and thus
explode, violently as soon as they communicate, either by rupturing
the interposed nonconductor, or by a metallic communication. This
curious method of a previous condensation of the two exploding
matters, without either of them being combined with any other
material except with the ethers of heat and light, distinguishes, this
ethereal explosion from that of most other bodies; and seems to have
been the cause, which prevented the ingenious Dr. Franklin, and others
since his time, from ascribing the powerful effects of the electric
battery, and of lightning in bursting trees, inflaming combustible
materials, and fusing metals, to chemical explosion; which it
resembles in every other circumstance, but in the manner of the
previous condensation of the materials, so as violently to attract
each other, and suddenly set at liberty the heat and light, with which
one or both of them were combined.

3. This combination of vitreous and resinous electric ethers is again
destroyed or weakened by the attractions of other bodies; as they
separate intirely, or exist in different proportions, forming
atmospheres round conducting and nonconducting bodies; and in this
they resemble other combinations of matters; as oxygen and azote, when
united in the production of nitrous acid, are again separated by
carbone; which attracts the oxygen more powerfully, than that attracts
the azote, with which it is combined.

This mode of again separating the combined electric ethers by pressing
them, as they surround bodies in different proportions, into each
other's atmospheres, as by the glass and cushion, has not been
observed respecting the decomposition of other bodies; when their
minute particles are brought so near together as to decompose each
other; which has thence probably contributed to prevent this
decomposition of the two combined electric ethers from being ascribed
to chemical laws; but, as far as we know, the attractive and repulsive
atmospheres round the minute particles of bodies in chemical
operations may act in a similar manner; as the attractive and
repulsive atmospheres, which accompany the electric ethers surrounding
the larger masses of matter, and that hence both the electric and the
chemical explosions are subject to the same laws, and also the
decomposition again of those particles, which were combined in the act
of explosion.

4. It is probable th