no GEORGE HERBERT STOCKBRIDGE 



of history. Franklin was fortunate in having demonstrated 

 an important scientific truth in a manner which appealed 

 to the imagination, and for this reason the unscientific mind 

 was more impressed by it than by any other discovery in 

 natural philosophy during the 18th century. ^The Phil- 

 adelphian experiments," says the Abbe Mazeas, in a letter 

 which was read to the Royal Society in May, 1752, ^'having 

 been universally admired in France, the king desired to see 

 them performed." 



It has been characteristic of electrical discoveries from 

 the beginning that they have lent themselves to startling 

 effects; but this experiment of drawing lightning from the 

 clouds involved the human interest quite as strongly as 

 the scientific. It was not alone a scientific achievement; 

 it was an act of personal daring which, in the public mind, 

 at least, approached very near to the moral sublime. Hence 

 it is the one portion of electrical history with which every- 

 body is familiar. 



The earliest reference in Franklin's writings to the notion 

 which afterwards led to his experiment appears in his note 

 book, under date of November 7, 1749, as follows : 



Electrical fluid agrees with lightning in these particulars : 



1. Giving light. 2. Color of the light. 3. Crooked direc- 

 tion. 4. Swift motion. 5. Being conducted by metals. 6. 

 Crack or noise in exploding. 7. Subsisting in water and ice. 

 8. Rending bodies it passes through. 9. Destroying animals. 

 10. Melting metals. 11. Firing inflammable substances. 12. 

 Sulphureous smell. The electrical fluid is attracted by points 

 — we do not know whether this property is in lightning. But 

 since they agree in all the particulars wherein we can hardly 

 compare them, is it not probable that they agree likewise in 

 this? Let the experiment be made. 



At this time, Franklin had been engaged for nearly 

 three years in the most absorbed pursuit of electrical ex- 

 perimentation, which commenced when his friend Peter 

 Collinson, a Fellow of the Royal Society, sent from London 

 to the Library company in Philadelphia an ^'electrical tube," 

 about the beginning of the year 1747. In a letter to Collin- 

 son, dated March 28, of that year, Franklin declares that 



