BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 45 



He had known fur some time the extraordinary power of 

 pointed bodies, both in drawing and in throwing off the electric 

 fire. The true explanation of this fact did not occur to him ; 

 but it is a direct consequence of the fundamental principle of 

 his own theory, according to which the repulsive tendency of 

 the particles of electricity towards each other, occasioning the 

 fluid to retire, in every case, from the interior to the surface 

 of bodies, drives it with especial force towards points and other 

 prominences, and thus favours its escape through such outlets ; 

 while, on the other hand, the more concentrated attraction 

 which the matter of a pointed body, as compared with 

 that of a blunt one, exerts upon the electricity to which it 

 is presented, brings it down into its new channel in a denser 

 stream. In possession, however, of the fact, we find him 

 concluding the paper we have mentioned as follows : — ' The 

 electric fluid is attracted by points. We do not know whether 

 this property be in lightning ; but since they agree in all the 

 particulars in which we can already compare them, it is not 

 improbable that they agree likewise in this. I^et the experi- 

 ment be made.' 



Full of this idea, it was yet some time before he found what 

 he conceived a favourable opportunity of trying its truth in 

 the way he meditated. A spire was about to be erected in 

 Philadelphia, which he thought would afford him facilities for 

 the experiment ; but his attention having been one day drawn 

 by a kite which a boy was flying, it suddenly occurred to him 

 that here was a method of reaching the clouds preferable to 

 any other. Accordingly, he immediately took a large silk 

 handkerchief and stretching it over two cross sticks, formed 

 in this manner his simple apparatus for drawing down the 

 lightning from its cloud. Soon after, seeing a thunderstorm 



