8 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



One of the schemes from which he evidently anticipated 

 much enjoyment was the pursuit of his electrical experi- 

 ments, for which he purchased the apparatus of Dr. Spence, 

 who had come from England to lecture here. Franklin had 

 met Dr. Spence, then recently come over from Scotland, in 

 Boston, in 1746, and was shown some experiments which, 

 though imperfectly performed, were novel, and equally surpris- 

 ing and pleasing to him. Soon afterward the Library Com- 

 pany received from Mr. Peter Collinson, of the Royal Society, 

 an account of the new German experiments in electricity, 

 with a glass tube and directions for using it. Franklin at once 

 improved the opportunity to repeat the experiments he had wit- 

 nessed in Boston. He also practised upon others accounts of 

 which had been received from England, and added new ones. 

 So many persons were attracted to his house to see the wonders 

 he could perform that he was in danger of being overworked ; 

 so he had a number of the tubes blown and distributed among 

 his friends, who were thus enabled to divide with him the bur- 

 den of entertaining the sightseers. A Mr. Kinnersley, being 

 out of business, was furnished with instruments of a little finer 

 make, and charged with two lectures prepared by Franklin, "in 

 which the experiments were ranged in such order and accom- 

 panied by such explanations in such method as that the fore- 

 going should assist in comprehending the following"; and he 

 proceeded to show the experiments for money. In return for 

 Mr. Collinson's favours, Franklin sent him accounts of his ex- 

 periments, which were read in the Royal Society, but were not 

 thought there "worth so much notice as to be printed in the 

 Transactions." "One paper," says Franklin, " which I wrote 

 for Mr. Kinnersley, on the sameness of lightning with elec- 

 tricity, I sent to Dr. Mitchell, an acquaintance of mine and 

 one of the members also of that society, who wrote to me that 

 it had been read but was laughed at by the connoisseurs. The 

 papers, however, being shown to Dr. Fothergill, he thought 

 them of too much value to be stifled, and advised the printing 

 of them. Mr. Collinson then gave them to Mr. Cave for pub- 

 lication in his Gentleman's Magazine, but he chose to print 

 them separately in a pamphlet, and Dr. Fothergill wrote the 

 preface. Cave, it seems, judged rightly for his profit, for by 

 the additions that arrived afterward they swelled to a quarto 

 volume . . . and cost him nothing for copy money. It was 



