BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 9 



some tim'e, however, before the papers were much taken notice 

 of in England. A copy of them happening to fall into the 

 hands of the Count de Buffon ... he prevailed with M. Doli- 

 baud to translate them into French, and they were printed in 

 Paris. The publication offended the Abbe Nollet, preceptor in 

 natural philosophy to the royal family, and an able experi- 

 menter who had formed and published a theory of electricity 

 which then had general vogue. He could not at first believe 

 that such a work came from America, and said it must have 

 been fabricated by his enemies in Paris to decry his system. 

 Afterward, having been assured that there really existed such a 

 person as Franklin in Philadelphia, which he had doubted, he 

 wrote and published a volume of letters, chiefly addressed to 

 me, and denying the validity of my experiments and of the 

 positions deduced from them." Franklin thought at first of 

 answering the abbe, but he reflected that every one might re- 

 peat and verify the experiments, and that he was not obliged 

 to defend observations offered as conjectures and not dogmat- 

 ically, and that a controversy would not be worth while. The 

 abbe was refuted by M. le Roy, of the Royal Academy of 

 Sciences. Franklin's book was translated into other languages, 

 and the doctrine it contained was by degrees universally adopted 

 by philosophers. 



A sudden and general celebrity was given to the book by 

 the success of one of the experiments proposed in it, in the 

 hands of MM. Dolibaud and De Lor at Marly, for drawing 

 lightning from the clouds. This engaged public attention 

 everywhere. M. De Lor's repetitions of the " Philadelphia ex- 

 periment," having been performed before the king and court, 

 was visited by all the curious of Paris. Franklin was greatly 

 pleased, and soon afterward made a similar one his famous 

 kite experiment in Philadelphia. 



Dr. Wright, an English physician, then in Paris, took up 

 Franklin's case and wrote to a friend in the Royal Society, 

 which had neglected the philosopher, concerning the high 

 estate to which his experiments had risen among the learned 

 abroad, and expressing wonder that so little notice was taken 

 of them in England. Dr. Watson drew up an account of these 

 and others of Franklin's papers, and it was printed in the 

 Transactions. Some of the members of the Royal Society 

 themselves drew lightning from the clouds, and in the end 



