582 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



U I say," he declares, "if these things are so, may not 

 the knowledge of this power of points be of use to man- 

 kind in preserving houses, churches, ships, &c., from the 

 stroke of lightning, by directing us to fix on the highest 

 parts of those edifices upright rods of iron made sharp as a 

 needle, and gilt to prevent rusting, and from the foot of 

 those rods a wire down the outside of the building into the 

 ground, or down round one of the shrouds of a ship and 

 down her side till it reaches the water ? Would not these 

 pointed rods probably draw the electrical fire silently out 

 of a cloud before it came nigh enough to strike, and 

 thereby secure us from that most sudden and terrible 

 mischief? 



u To determine the question, whether the clouds that 

 contain the lightning are electrified or not, I would pro- 

 pose an experiment to be tried where it may be done con- 

 veniently. On the top of some high tower or steeple, 

 place a kind of centry-box big enough to contain a man 

 and an electrical stand. From the' middle of the stand let 

 an iron rod rise and pass bending out of the door, and then 

 upright twenty or thirty feet, pointed very sharp at the 

 end. If the electrical stand be kept clean and dry, a man 

 standing on it when such clouds are passing low, might be 

 electrified and afford sparks, the rod drawing fire to him 

 from a cloud. If any danger to the man should be ap- 

 prehended (though I think there would be none) let him 

 stand on the floor of his box and now and then bring near 

 to the rod the loop of a wire that has one end fastened to 

 the leads, he holding it by a wax handle ; so the sparks, if 

 the rod is electrified, will strike from the rod to the wire, 

 and not affect him." 



When Collinson received that paper, he recognized at 

 once that here was no ordinary discovery, and that how- 

 ever ingenious or interesting Franklin's ideas may hitherto 

 have been concerning the nature of the electric fire, the 

 behavior of jars and such matters, this announcement re- 

 duced every past item of electrical knowledge to compara- 



