button to main menu  Gents Mag 1811 part 2 p.114
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Gentleman's Magazine 1811 part 2 p.114
of many disorders of health, has never been sufficiently reflected upon. ...
... De Luc's Electric Column, or Aerial Electroscope ...
... it [the electroscope] is considerably altered by peculiarities in the electric state of the atmosphere. The prevalence of Cirri ramifying about the sky in various directions, and accompanied often by other modifications, by dry Easterly and changeable winds, and by many small meteors of an evening, certainly indicates a disturbance in the atmospherical electricity; and such kind of weather I have noticed to be accompanied by an irregular action of the Electric Column of M. De Luc; the bells ring at intervals, and with a kind of hurried pulsation. When such weather as I have described is followed by rain, the bells have been found silent. There are also other varieties in the kind of pulsation of the bells; sometimes they ring weak and regular, sometimes weak and irregularly, sometimes strong and regular, at others strong but irregular; the intervals of quiescence are sometimes of longer duration than at others; these minute variations are probably connected with peculiarities in the state of the atmosphere, as I have said above, which are worthy attention, because they may be principally concerned in producing many disorders of health which are attributed to atmospheric influence; when the weather is settled, when only diurnal Cumuli prevail with Westerly winds, then the action of De Luc's Column is the most regular, and this is generally allowed to be the most wholesome kind of weather.
Yours, &c. THOMAS FORSTER.
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