1261. Here 204 deg. must be the utmost of the divisible charge. The app. i. and
app. ii. present 118 deg. as their respective forces; both now much _above_ the
half of the first force, or 102 deg., whereas in the former case they were
below it. The lac app. i. has lost only 86 deg., yet it has given to the air
app. ii. 118 deg., so that the lac still appears much to surpass the air, the
capacity of the lac app. i. to the air app. ii. being as 1.37 to 1.

1262. The difference of 1.55 and 1.37 as the expression of the capacity for
the induction of shell-lac seems considerable, but is in reality very
admissible under the circumstances, for both are in error in _contrary
directions_. Thus in the last experiment the charge fell from 215 deg. to 204 deg.
by the joint effects of dissipation and absorption (1192. 1250.), during
the time which elapsed in the electrometer operations, between the
applications of the carrier ball required to give those two results. Nearly
an equal time must have elapsed between the application of the carrier
which gave the 204 deg. result, and the division of the charge between the two
apparatus; and as the fall in force progressively decreases in amount
(1192.), if in this case it be taken at 6 deg. only, it will reduce the whole
transferable charge at the time of division to 198 deg. instead of 204 deg.; this
diminishes the loss of the shell-lac charge to 80 deg. instead of 86 deg.; and then
the expression of specific capacity for it is increased, and, instead of
1.37, is 1.47 times that of air.

1263. Applying the same correction to the former experiment in which air
was _first_ charged, the result is of the _contrary_ kind. No shell-lac
hemisphere was then in the apparatus, and therefore the loss would be
principally from dissipation, and not from absorption: hence it would be
nearer to the degree of loss shown by the numbers 304 deg. and 297 deg., and being
assumed as 6 deg. would reduce the divisible charge to 284 deg.. In that case the
air would have lost 170 deg., and communicated only 113 deg. to the shell-lac; and
the relative specific capacity of the latter would appear to be 1.50, which
is very little indeed removed from 1.47, the expression given by the second
experiment when corrected in the same way.

1264. The shell-lac was then removed from app. i. and put into app. ii. and
the experiments of division again made. I give the results, because I think
the importance of the point just