44 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 



reasons on which he rested his conjecture. It is to Franklin 

 alone, however, that the glory belongs of both pointing out 

 the true method of verifying this conjecture, and of actually 

 establishing the perfect identity of the two powers in ques- 

 tion. ' It has, indeed, been of late the fashion,' says the 

 editor of the first account of his electrical experiments, pub- 

 lished at London in 1751, 'to ascribe every grand or unusual 

 operation of nature, such as lightning and earthquakes, to 

 electricity ; not, as one would imagine from the manner of 

 reasoning on these occasions, that the authors of these 

 schemes have discovered any connection betwixt the cause 

 and effect, or saw in what manner they were related ; but, 

 as it would seem, merely because they were unacquainted 

 with any other agent, of which it could not positively be 

 said the connection was impossible.' FrankUn transformed 

 what had been little more than a figure of rhetoric into a 

 most important scientific fact. 



In a paper, dated November 7, 1749, he enumerates all 

 the known points of resemblance between lightning and elec- 

 tricity. In the first place, he remarks, it is no wonder that 

 the effects of the one should be so much greater than those 

 of the other ; for if two gun-barrels electrified will strike at 

 two inches' distance, and make a loud report, at how great a 

 distance will ten thousand acres of electrified cloud strike, 

 and give its fire; and how loud must be that crack! He 

 then notices the crooked and waving course both of the flash 

 of lightning and, in some cases, of the electric sparks; the 

 tendency of lightning, like electricity, to take the readiest and 

 best conductor ; the fact that lightning, as well as electricity, 

 dissolves metals, burns some bodies, rends others, strikes people 

 blind, destroys animal life, reverses the poles of magnets, etc 



