PROGRESS IN ELECTRICITY 



and thereby secure us from that most sudden and terri- 

 ble mischief? 



"To determine this question, whether the clouds 

 that contain the lightning are electrified or not, I pro- 

 pose an experiment to be tried where it may be done 

 conveniently. On the top of some high tower or 

 steeple, place a kind of sentry-box, big enough to con- 

 tain a man and an electrical stand. From the middle 

 of the stand let an iron rod rise and pass, bending out 

 of the door, and then upright twenty or thirty feet, 

 pointed very sharp at the end. If the electrical stand 

 be kept clean and dry, a man standing on it when such 

 clouds are passing low might be electrified and afford 

 sparks, the rod drawing fire to him from a cloud. If 

 any danger to the man be apprehended (though I 

 think there would be none), let him stand on the floor 

 of his box and now and then bring near to the rod the 

 loop of a wire that has one end fastened to the leads, 

 he holding it by a wax handle ; so the sparks, if the rod 

 is electrified, will strike from the rod to the wire and 

 not effect him." 4 



Not satisfied with all the evidence that he had col- 

 lected pointing to the identity of lightning and elec- 

 tricity, he adds one more striking and very suggestive 

 piece of evidence. Lightning was known sometimes 

 to strike persons blind without killing them. In ex- 

 perimenting on pigeons and pullets with his electrical 

 machine, Frankling found that a fowl, when not killed 

 outright, was sometimes rendered blind. The report 

 of these experiments were incorporated in this famous 

 letter of the Philadelphia philosopher. 



The attitude of the Royal Society towards this 



291 



