1883.] Origin of Lightning Rods . 529 
a meeting of the Society above mentioned, on the 27th 
November, 1872, in which paper we are told that electricity 
is one form of energy, and therefore necessarily force. 
Because, in fact, electricity is a certain effeCt, therefore it 
must also be the cause of that effeCt. 
Whilst Franklin was pursuing his eleCtrical investigations 
he kept up a communication with some scientific friends in 
England who were interested in his researches. His writings 
at this time consist principally of a series of letters ad- 
dressed to Mr. Peter Collinson, F.R.S., and they were 
eventually published under the title of “ New Experiments 
and Observations on Electricity, made at Philadelphia, in 
America, by Benjamin Franklin, Esq.,” the third edition of 
which was published in London, by Cave, in 1760. Of these 
famous letters Dr. Joseph Priestley, F.R.S., in his “ History 
of Electricity” (4th edition, London, 1775), says: — 
“ Nothing was ever written upon the subject of electricity 
which was more generally read and admired in all parts of 
Europe than these letters. Dr. Franklin’s principles bid 
fair to be handed down to posterity as expressive of the true 
principles of electricity, just as the Newtonian philosophy is 
of the true system of Nature in general.” 
The first letter in which Franklin alludes to the eleCtrical 
power of points , and to the germ of the future lightning rod, 
is dated September 1st, 1747, and is as follows : — “ In my 
last I informed you that in pursuing our eleCtrical enquiries 
we had observed some particular phenomena, which we 
looked upon to be new, and of which I promised to give you 
some account, tho’ I apprehended they might possibly not 
be new to you, as so many hands are daily employed in 
eleCtrical experiments on your side of the water, some or 
other of which would probably hit on the same observations. 
The first is the wonderful effeCt of pointed bodies both in 
drawing off and in throwing off the eleCtrical fire.” [ The 
italics are Franklin's.'] He goes on to describe an experiment 
with an iron round shot of 3 or 4 inches in diameter (over 
which was suspended a small cork ball), and states that, if 
the shot be electrified, and then a long, slender, sharp, bod- 
kin be presented to it, at some 6 or 8 inches distance, the 
electricity will be drawn off by the bodkin’s point. He then 
says : — “ To show that points will throw off as well as draw 
off the eleCtrical fire, lay a long sharp needle upon the shot, 
and you cannot eleCtrise the shot so as to make it repel the 
cork ball. Or fix a needle to the end of a suspended gun- 
barrel or iron rod, so as to point beyond it like a little 
bayonet, and while it remains there the gun-barrel or rod 
