ii8 Nichols: Franklin's 



not yet exist. After a century and a half of further 

 study our electricians are still seeking a solution of the 

 problem. Whether the phenomena are to find their ulti- 

 mate explanation, as we now imagine, in the ionization 

 of the air remains for the future to determine. 



Of speculation as to the nature of electricity before 

 Franklin's time and among his contemporaries, there had 

 already been an abundance but it was for the most part 

 vague, with a tendency to the occult. This was partic- 

 ularly true of the German experimenters of the period 

 of whom Hoppe^ in his " History of Electricity " says 

 that they did not understand the significance of their 

 own experiments and so mixed their facts with fantasy 

 as to render them unintelligible to others. He compares 

 the bombastic and vaguely phrased work of such writers 

 with the productions of Franklin, of which he says: " I 

 have read no work of the former century so easy and 

 clear of understanding as those letters which Franklin 

 sent to London and through which in the course of a 

 few months he became world renowned." There is 

 nothing obscure about Franklin's presentation: even in 

 his theorizing, there is no misunderstanding him. He 

 thought essentially as we do to-day although compelled 

 to express himself in part at least in the language of 

 his period. How many writers on science in our day 

 can hope to be as easily understood in the year 2060? 



^Hoppe: Die Elektrizitat, p. 26. 



