_The Laws of Electricity._
Electricity undoubtedly exists in the atmosphere in most states of
the air; but we know very imperfectly the laws of this agent, and
are still more ignorant of its atmospheric operation. The present
state of science does not therefore enable us to perceive those
adaptations of its laws to its uses, which we can discover in those
cases where the laws and the uses are both of them more apparent.
We can, however, easily make out that electrical agency plays a
very considerable part among the clouds, in their usual conditions
and changes. This may be easily shown by Franklin’s experiment of
the electrical kite. The clouds are sometimes positively, sometimes
negatively, charged, and the rain which descends from them offers
also indications of one or other kind of electricity. The changes
of wind and alterations of the form of the clouds are generally
accompanied with changes in these electrical indications. Every one
knows that a thunder-cloud is strongly charged with the electric
fluid, (if it be a fluid,) and that the stroke of the lightning
is an electrical discharge. We may add that it appears, by recent
experiments, that a transfer of electricity between plants and
the atmosphere is perpetually going on during the process of
vegetation.
We cannot trace very exactly the precise circumstances, in the
occurrences of the atmospheric regions, which depend on the
influence of the laws of electricity: but we are tolerably certain,
from what has been already noticed, that if these laws did not
exist, or were very different from what they now are, the action of
the clouds and winds, and the course of vegetation, would also be
other than it now is.
It is therefore at any rate very probable that electricity has its
appointed and important purposes in the economy of the atmosphere.
And this being so, we may see a use in the thunder-storm and the
stroke of the lightning. These violent events are, with regard to
the electricity of the atmosphere, what winds are with regard to
heat and moisture. They restore the equilibrium where it has been
dissolved, and carry the fluid from places where it is superfluous,
to others where it is deficient.
We are so constituted, however, that these crises impress almost
every one with a feeling of awe. The deep lowering gloom of the
thunder-cloud, the overwhelming burst of the explosion, the flash
from which the steadiest eye shrinks, and the irresistible arrow of
the lightning which no earthly substance can withstand, speak of
something fearful, even independently of the personal danger which
they may whisper. They convey, far more than any other appearance
does, the idea of a superior and mighty power, manifesting
displeasure and threatening punishment. Yet we find that this is
not the language which they speak to the physical inquirer: he sees
these formidable symptoms only as the means or the consequences
of good. What office the thunderbolt and the whirlwind may have
in the _moral_ world, we cannot here discuss: but certainly _he_
must speculate as far beyond the limits of philosophy as of piety,
who pretends to have learnt that there their work has more of evil
than of good. In the _natural_ world, these apparently destructive
agents are, like all the other movements and appearances of the
atmosphere, parts of a great scheme, of which every discoverable
purpose is marked with beneficence as well as wisdom.