y succeeds,
and the consequent attractions and repulsions, which form the
explosion.

The whole mixed mass of matter, of which the earth is composed, we
suppose to be surrounded and penetrated by the two ethers, but with a
greater proportion of the masculine ether than of the feminine. When a
stone is elevated above the surface of the earth, we suppose it also
to be surrounded with an atmosphere of the two ethers, but with a
greater proportion of the feminine than of the masculine, and that
these ethers adhere strongly by cohesion both to the earth and to the
stone elevated above it. Now the greater quantity of the masculine
ether of the earth becomes in contact with the greater quantity of the
feminine ether of the stone above it; which it powerfully attracts,
and at the same time repels the less quantity of the masculine ether
of the stone. The reciprocal attractions of these two fluids, if not
restrained by counter attractions, bring them together as in chemical
combination, and thus they bring together the solid bodies, which they
reciprocally adhere to; if they be not immovable; which solid bodies,
when brought into contact, cohere by their own reciprocal attractions,
and hence the mysterious affair of distant attraction or gravitation
becomes intelligible, and consonant to the chemical combinations of
fluids.

To further elucidate these various attractions, if the patient reader
be not already tired, he will please to attend to the following
experiment: let a bit of sponge suspended on a silk line be moistened
with a solution of pure alcali, and another similar piece of sponge be
moistened with a weak acid, and suspended near the former; electrize
one of them with vitreous ether, and the other with resinous ether; as
they hang with a thin plate of glass between them: now as these two
electric ethers appear to attract each other without intermixing; as
neither of them can pass through glass; they must be themselves
surrounded with secondary ethers, which pass through the glass, and
attract each other, as they become in contact; as these secondary
ethers adhere to the primary vitreous and resinous ethers, these
primary ones are drawn by them into each other's vicinity by the
attraction of cohesion, and become condensed on each side of the glass
plane; and then when the glass plane is withdrawn, the two electric
ethers being now in contact rush violently together, and draw along
with them the pieces of moistened s