374 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 612. 



deeply interesting- results obtained by them. 

 Moreover, it is suggestive of many possibili- 

 ties of future discovery, 



S. Lawrence Bigelow. 



SGIENTIFIG JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 

 The Journal of Experimental Zoology^ Vol. 

 III., No. 2 (July, 1906), contains the follow- 

 ing articles : ' Observations and Exi)eriments 

 Concerning the Elementary Phenomena of 

 Embryonic Development in Chcetopterus/ by 

 Erank.R. Lillie. This is a study of the origin 

 and behavior of formative stuffs in the early 

 development of an annelid by direct observa- 

 tion, and by various experiments, e. g., analysis 

 by centrifugal force, by staining intra vitam, 

 and by suppressing the process of cleavage 

 without prejudice to other embryonic proc- 

 esses. The standpoint is that a complete ac- 

 count of embryonic development would trace 

 everything back to the chromosome complex 

 of the species. ' Regeneration of Grafted 

 Pieces of Planarians,' by Lilian Y. Morgan, 

 A complete head may regenerate from a pos- 

 terior cut surface of planarians if a very short 

 piece is grafted in a reverse direction on a 

 larger piece. ' Experiments on the Behavior 

 of Tubicolous Annelids,' by Charles W. Har- 

 gitt. ' Inheritance of Dichromatism in Lina 

 and Oastroidea,'' by Isabel McCracken, Stan- 

 ford University. In this paper the author 

 records the results of an attempt to determine 

 the behavior in heredity of the alternate char- 

 acters in dichromatic species. Two dichro- 

 matic beetles, Lina lapponica and Gastroidea 

 dissimilis, were bred under controlled condi- 

 tions through a series of generations, four in 

 the former, seven in the latter. The investi- 

 gator finds an accumulative dominance of one 

 color over the other from generation to gen- 

 eration, or a prepotency of the dominating 

 color that apparently eventually eliminates 

 the recessive color from the dominant line. 

 The recessive color behaves like a typical 

 Mendelian recessive. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



WHEN DID FRANKLIN INVENT THE LIGHTNING-ROD? 



The bi-centenary of Benjamin Eranklin's 

 birth has served to recall attention to the 



varied achievements of this remarkable man, 

 but it would hardly be expected that new 

 facts could be learned regarding the invention 

 of the lightning-rod, upon which his popular 

 fame as a natural philosopher chiefly rests. 



Franklin's classic experiment with the elec- 

 trical kite, by which he demonstrated the 

 identity of lightning and artificial electricity, 

 was performed at Philadelphia during the 

 summer of 1752. The date June, which is 

 frequently quoted, seems to have been author- 

 ized by Priestley in his History of Electricity. 

 On the contrary, his French contemporary, 

 De Romas, who claimed the idea of the elec- 

 trical kite, maintained that Franklin did not 

 fly his kite in June, nor until after he had 

 heard of the success of the French experi- 

 menters, Dalibard and Delor, who, in May, 

 1752, collected the electricity during a thunder- 

 storm by metal rods, according to a method 

 which he himself had suggested. Authorities 

 differ as to whether Franklin knew of this 

 when he obtained the same results with his 

 kite. Park Benjamin, on page 589 of his * In- 

 tellectual Rise in Electricity,' asserting that 

 Franklin desired to confirm the French ex- 

 periments. If this be true the kite ex- 

 periment could hardly have been executed 

 at Philadelphia so soon as the following 

 month, that is in June, but, at all events, no 

 mention of it occurs anywhere until a letter 

 describing it, written there in October to 

 Peter Collinson at London, was read before 

 the Royal Society on December 21, 1752. This 

 communication, which appeared in the Gentle- 

 man's Magazine for December, 1752, and in 

 the Philosophical Transactions for the same 

 year, was reprinted with Franklin's ' Experi- 

 ments and Observations in Electricity,' of 

 which the second part of the first edition 

 was published at London in 1753. While it 

 seems to have passed unnoticed that the letter 

 describing the electrical kite in the Philo- 

 sophical Transactions is dated October 1 and 

 the same letter in the collected papers bears 

 the date October 19, a date subsequently 

 adopted by his biographers, it was reserved for 

 a German bibliographer. Professor Hellmann, 

 to point out, in publishing a facsimile of this 



