If two cork-balls be suspended by dry silk threads, the excited tube
must be brought within eighteen inches before they will repel each
other; which they will continue to do, for some time, after the tube
is taken away.
As the balls in the first experiment are not insulated, they cannot
properly be said to be electrified: but when they hang within the
atmosphere of the excited tube, they may attract and condense the
electrical fluid round about them, and be separated by the repulsion
of its particles. It is conjectured also, that the balls at this
time contain less than their common share of the electrical fluid,
on account of the repelling power of that which surrounds them;
though some, perhaps, is continually entering and passing through
the threads. And if that be the case, the reason is plain why the
balls hung by silk, in the second experiment, must be in a much more
dense part of the atmosphere of the tube, before they will repel each
other. At the approach of an excited stick of wax to the balls, in
the first experiment, the electrical fire is supposed to come through
the threads into the balls, and be condensed there, in its passage
towards the wax; for, according to Mr. Franklin, excited glass
_emits_ the electrical fluid, but excited wax _receives_ it.