A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



clearly stated letter, with its useful suggestions, must 

 always remain as a blot on the record of this usually 

 very receptive and liberal-minded body. Far from 

 publishing it or receiving it at all, they derided the 

 whole matter as too visionary for discussion by the 

 society. How was it possible that any great scientific 

 discovery could be made by a self-educated colonial 

 newspaper editor, who knew nothing of European 

 science except by hear-say, when all the great scientific 

 minds of Europe had failed to make the discovery? 

 How indeed ! And yet it would seem that if any of the 

 influential members of the learned society had taken 

 the trouble to read over Franklin's clearly stated letter, 

 they could hardly have failed to see that his sugges- 

 tions were worthy of consideration. But at all events, 

 whether they did or did not matters little. The fact 

 remains that they refused to consider the paper seri- 

 ously at the time; and later on, when its true value 

 became known, were obliged to acknowledge their error 

 by a tardy report on the already well-known docu- 

 ment. 



But if English scientists were cold in their reception 

 of Franklin's theory and suggestions, the French scien- 

 tists were not. Buffon, perceiving at once the im- 

 portance of some of Franklin's experiments, took steps 

 to have the famous letter translated into French, and 

 soon not only the savants, but members of the court 

 and the king himself were intensely interested. Two 

 scientists, De Lor and D'Alibard, undertook to test the 

 truth of Franklin's suggestions as to pointed rods 

 "drawing off lightning." In a garden near Paris, the 

 latter erected a pointed iron rod fifty feet high and an 



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