530 Benjamin Franklin and the [September, 
cannot, by applying the tube at the other end, be eleCtrised 
so as to give a spark, the fire constantly running out silently 
at the point.” 
In this letter we have the first intimation of the electrical 
power of points, and a clear proof that to Franklin is due 
the great honour of having been the first to introduce the 
knowledge of this power to the world. On this great faCt 
will Franklin’s fame for ever rest, and we shall endeavour to 
show that it was on this power alone that he originally based 
his invention of the lightning rod. That he actually discovered 
this power is, we are expressly told by Franklin himself, not 
the case. Dr. Priestley writes : — “ Dr. Franklin, in the new 
edition of his Letters, says that the power of points to throw 
off the eleCtric fire was communicated to him by his friend 
Mr. Thomas Hopkinson, who eleCtrised an iron ball 3 or 
4 inches in diameter with a needle fastened to it, expecting 
to draw a stronger spark from the point, as from a kind of 
focus, but was surprised to find little or none.” — (Hist. 
EleCt., 175.) But that Franklin was the original recogniser 
and employer of this property is acknowledged by Nollet, 
.the eminent French philosopher, who opposed several of 
Franklin’s views, and especially the merits of his lightning 
rods. According to Priestley, Nollet admits “that Dr. 
Franklin was the first who showed the property of pointed 
bodies in drawing off electricity more effectually and at 
greater distances than other bodies could do it.” — (Hist. 
EleCt., 165.) 
The second letter from Franklin, in the sequence illus- 
trating the development of his ideas on the connection of 
points and thunderbolts, is a memorandum headed “ Pro- 
perties and Effects of the EleCtrical Matter arising from 
Experiments and Observations made at Philadelphia, 1749,” 
which was apparently sent to Mr. Collinson with the 
Letter IV. of July 29th, 1750. In this paper Franklin 
again explains the power of points to draw off as well as to 
throw off charge ; and then he says ; — “ I say, if these 
things are so, may not the knowledge of this power of 
points be of use to mankind in preserving houses, churches, 
ships, &c., from the stroke of lightning, by directing us to 
fix, on the highest points of those edifices, upright rods of 
iron, made sharp as a needle and gilt to prevent rusting, 
and from the foot of those rods a wire down to the outside 
of the building into the ground, or down round one of the 
shrouds of a ship, and down her side till it reaches the 
water ? Would not these pointed rods probably draw the 
electrical fire silently out of a cloud before it came nigh 
