BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 35 



to any general and comprehensive system. It is true that a 

 theory, that of M. Dufay, had been formed before this time to 

 account for many of them, and also for others that we have not 

 mentioned ; but it does not appear that Franklin ever heard of 

 it until he had formed his own, which is, at all events, entirely 

 different ; so that it is unnecessary for us to take it at all into 

 account. We shall form a fair estimate of the amount and 

 merits of Franklin's discoveries, by considering the facts we 

 have mentioned as really constituting the science in the state 

 in which he found it. 



It was in the year 1746, as he tells us himself in the narra- 

 tive of his life, that, being in Boston, he met with a Dr. Spence, 

 who had lately arrived from Scotland, and who showed him 

 some electrical experiments. They were imperfectly performed, 

 as the doctor was not very expert ; * but being,' says Franklin, 

 ' on a subject quite new to rrie, they equally surprised and 

 pleased me. Soon after my return to Philadelphia, our 

 Library Company received from Mr. Peter CoUinson, F.R.S. 

 of London, a present of a glass tube, with some account of the 

 use of it in making such experiments. I eagerly seized the 

 opportunity of repeating what I had seen at Boston, and, by 

 much practice, acquired great readiness in performing those 

 also which we had an account of from England, adding a 

 number of new ones. I say much practice, for my house was 

 continually full for some time with persons who came to see 

 these new wonders. To divide a little this incumbrance among 

 my friends, I caused a number of similar tubes to be blown in 

 our glasshouse, with which they furnished themselves, so that 

 we had at length several performers.' The newly-discovered 

 and extraordinary phenomena exhibited by the Leyden phial, 

 of course, very early engaged his attention in pursuing these 



