EXPERIMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS TENDING TO ILLUSTRATE THE NATURE AND PROPERTIES OF ELECTRICITY. In one LETTER to _Martin Folkes_, Esq; President, and Two to the _Royal Society_. By _WILLIAM WATSON_, F. R. S. _LONDON_: Printed for C. DAVIS, Printer to the _Royal Society_, against _Gray's-Inn, Holborn_. MDCCXLVI. [Price One Shilling.] THE PREFACE. _The following Sheets were not intended to be made publick, but as part of the Philosophical Transactions. As those Works are printed in the order of Time they are read; these Observations, communicated to the_ ROYAL SOCIETY _at different Meetings, would, upon that Account, have been publish'd separate in different Numbers of those Transactions. To satisfy therefore the Impatience of several learned and very valuable Friends, to whose Importunities I have neither Will, nor Inclination to deny any thing in my Power to grant, I caused a few Copies to be printed, that the whole might be seen together, and then broke up the Press. This has excited the Curiosity of the Publick, and raised a Demand for these Experiments much beyond what I had reason to expect. I therefore found it necessary to send them to the Press a second Time, lest some of those over-officious Gentlemen, who are always ready on these Occasions, should do it for me; so that whoever has an Inclination, may now be made acquainted, by what Means the several surprizing Phænomena of Electricity have been brought about._