ogy between electricity and lightning had been noticed, and conjectures as to 

 their identity were expressed ; and in some cases distinct predictions hazarded, 

 that the time would arrive which would fully establish their identity. Dr. 

 Wall, in a paper published in the " Philosophical Transactions," speaking of 

 the electricity of amber, said that he had no doubt, " that by using a longer and 

 larger piece of amber, both the cracklings and the light would be much greater. 

 This light and crackling seems in some degree to represent thunder and 

 lightning."* 



Mr. Grey, whose experiments have been already referred to, says, speaking 

 of electrical effects : " These are at present but in minimi s. It is probable 

 that, in time, there may be found out a way to collect a greater quantity of elec- 

 tric fire, and consequently to increase the force of that power, which, by sev- 

 eral of these experiments, si licet magnis componere parva, seems to be of the 

 same nature with that of thunder and lightning." 



But of all the anticipations which are pretended to of the grand discovery 

 of the philosopher of Philadelphia, that which is by far the most remarkable 

 proceeded from his contemporary and competitor, the Abbe Nollet. Immedi- 

 ately after the first exhibition of the experiments proving the identity of elec- 

 tricity and lightning, the abbe urged his claim to a share of the merit of having 

 suggested them. In a paper, dated Paris, June 6, 1752, the abbe, after noti- 

 cing the experiments, observes that he " is more interested than any one to 

 come at the facts, which prove a true analogy between lightning and electricity, 

 since these experiments establish incontestably a truth which he had conceived, 

 and which he ventured to lay before the public more than four years ago." 



In the fourth volume of his Lecons de Physique is found the following pas- 

 sage : " If any one should undertake to prove, as a clear consequence of the 

 phenomenon, that thunder is, in the hands of nature, what electricity is in ours 

 that those wonders which we dispose at our pleasure are only imitations on 

 a small scale of those grand effects which terrify us, and that both depend on 

 the same mechanical agents if it were made manifest that a cloud prepared 

 by the effects of the wind, by heat, by a mixture of exhalations, &c., is in re- 

 lation to a terrestrial object, what an electrified body is in relation to a 

 body near it not electrified, I confess that this idea, well supported, would 

 please me much ; and to support it, how numerous and specious are the rea- 

 sons which present themselves to a mind conversant with electricity. The 

 universality of the electric matter, the readiness of its action, its instrumen- 

 tality, and its activity in giving fire to other bodies ; its property of striking 

 bodies externally and internally, even to their smallest parts (the remarkable 

 example we have of this effect even in the Leyden jar experiment, the idea 

 which we might truly adopt in supposing a greater degree of electric power) ; 

 all these points of analogy which I have been for some time meditating, begin 

 to make me believe that one might, by taking electricity for the model, form to 

 oneself, in regard to thunder and lightning, more perfect and more probable 

 ideas than any hitherto proposed."! 



The volume containing this passage was printed and published toward the 

 close of the year 1748, as appears by the register of the Academy of Sciences, 

 in which the order to print it bears date on the 9th of August in 'that year. It 

 will presently appear that Franklin's first publication of the same views was 

 in a letter addressed to Mr. Collinson, despatched in 1749. So far, therefore, 

 as relates to these speculations, the priority of publication must be conceded 

 to Nollet. It seems, however, improbable that Franklin, residing in Philadel- 

 phia, could have seen Nollet's volume between the date of its publication and 



' Priestley, History of Electricity, p. 11. 

 t Nollet, Lemons de Physique, torn iv., p. 



315, 8me. edition. 



