126 ELECTRICITY. 



b/unt conductors ; and to crown this most egregious absurdity, blunt conductors 

 were actually erected upon the royal palace ! * 



Franklin next directed his inquiries to the quantity and nature of the elec- 

 tricity with which the clouds in various states of the atmosphere were charg- 

 ed. To facilitate his experimental inquiries on this subject, he erected in his 

 house in Philadelphia a pointed iron rod, which he was enabled to insulate at 

 pleasure. This rod was put in communication with a system of bells, which 

 alternately attracted and repelled their hammers when electrified. Whenever 

 a cloud charged with electricity passed over the house within such a distance 

 as to affect the conductor, these bells would ring and inform him of the oppor- 

 tunity of prosecuting his experiments. 



Having satisfied himself that the clouds were frequently in an electrified 

 state when there was no thunder or lightning, his next inquiry was, whether 

 they were electrified positively or negatively. This was a question of more 

 interest to him, because, according to his theory, if their .electricity were neg- 

 ative, the earth, "in thunder-strokes, would strike into the clouds, and not the 

 clouds into the earth." To determine this, he "took two phials and charged 

 one of them with lightning from the iron rod, and gave the other an equal 

 charge (of electricity) from the prime conductor. When charged he placed 

 them on a table within three or four inches of each other, a small cork ball 

 being suspended by a fine silk thread from the ceiling, so as to play between 

 the wires. If both bottles then were electrified positively, the ball being attract- 

 ed and then repelled by the one must be repelled by the other. If the one 

 positively and the other negatively, then the ball would be attracted and repel- 

 led by each, and continue to play between them, so long as any considerable 

 charge remained.''! 



From experiments with this apparatus lie concluded that clouds were some- 

 times positively and sometimes negati' ny electrified, but oftener negatively. 

 Electrical instruments had not yet, however, advanced to such a state of im- 

 provement as to enable a mind, even acute as his, to make much further dis- 

 covery in atmospheric electricity ; a> d although the details of his experiments 

 arid his theoretical speculations regarding them must always be read with 

 profound interest, yet no further principles of importance appear to have been 

 evolved from them. 



If it be true that the Royal Society laughed at his speculations and refused 

 to them a place in their Transactions, they were not slow to retract and repair 

 their error. They conferred upon him their highest honor (the Copley medal), 

 and unanimously elected him an honorary member of their society, in 1753. 



An experiment so remarkable as the attraction of lightning from the clouds, 

 could not fail to be verified and repeated by many enthusiastic lovers of science. 

 One of the first instances of this zeal was rendered memorable by its fatal re- 

 sult. Professor George William Richmann, of St. Petersburg, was preparing 

 an essay on electricity ; and in order to obtain the most certain and accurate 

 knowledge of the phenomena, he placed a conductor on his house, making a 

 metallic communication between it and his study, where he provided means for 

 repeating Franklin's experiments. On the 6th of August, 1753, while Rich- 

 inann attended a meeting of the Petersburg Academy of Science, distant thun- 

 der was heard, on which he went to his house, accompanied by Sokolow, the 

 engraver, who being engaged to illustrate his work, desired to see those elec- 



* " The king's changing his pointed conductors for lihinf. ones is a matter of small import;) 

 me. II 1 Lad a wish about them, it would l>o, that he would reject them altogether a.s mvIl.x-Ma 

 For it is only since he thought himself and his family sale from the thunder of heaven that he ha 

 dared to use his own thunder in destroying his innocent subjects." Franklin's Works viii 227 



t Lclterb, p. 302. 



