Abstract
§ I. THAT air can be electrified either positively or negatively is obvious from the fact that an isolated spherule of pure water, electrified either positively or negatively, can be wholly evaporated in air.2 Thirty-four years ago it was pointed out by one of us 3 as probable that in ordinary natural atmospheric conditions, the air for some considerable height above the earth's surface is electrified,4 and that the incessant variations of electrostatic force which he had observed, minute after minute, during calms and light winds, and often under a cloudless sky, were due to motions of large quantities of positively or negatively electrified air in the immediate neighbourhood of the place of observation.
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The Electrification of Air1. Nature 50, 280–283 (1894). https://doi.org/10.1038/050280a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/050280a0