Thunder and Lightning. 115 



periment, and he sent his kite up into a thunder 

 cloud. The experiment succeeded beyond his 

 hope. The \vire in the kite attracted the elec- 

 tricity from the cloud ; it descended along the 

 hempen string, and was received by an iron key 

 attached to the extremity of the hempen string, 

 that part which he held in his hand being of 

 silk, in order that the electric fluid might stop 

 when it reached the key. At this key he charged 

 phials, with which phials thus charged he kindled 

 spirits, and performed all the common electrical 

 experiments. 



Thus it became evident that the cause of those 

 terrible convulsio.ns of nature, which, in warm 

 climates especially, are attended with such tre- 

 mendous effects, is no other than a superfluous 

 mass of electrical matter, collected in those immense 

 watery conductors, the clouds; and that this matter 

 is discharged when an electrical cloud meets with 

 another which is less powerfully charged, or when 

 it is brought sufficiently near to the earth to be 

 within the sphere of the electrical attraction. This 

 fact may be proved at almost any time, but par- 

 ticularly in a sultry summer's evening, by repeat- 

 ing Dr. Franklin's experiment with the kite. 

 Some caution, however, must be used in making 

 ihe experiment; and it will succeed better if a 

 small wire is twisted in with the hempen string 

 by which the kite is held ; indeed Mr. Walker, in 

 his Lectures, recommends to fly the kite with 



