532 
Benjamin Franklin and the [September, 
it, and having at the top “ a very sharp pointed wire ” rising 
a foot above the wood. The kite is held by a silk ribbon (in 
the hand) attached to the twine-cord, and the person must 
stand within a doorway, so that the silk does not get wet. 
“ As soon as any of the thunder-clouds come over the kite 
the pointed wire will draw the electric fire from them,” . . . 
“ and when the rain has wet the kite and twine so that it 
can conduct the eleCtric fire freely, you will find it stream 
out plentifully from the key on the approach of your 
knuckle.” 
It is to be borne in mind that Franklin, in his early letters, 
uses the term “ eleCtric fire ” as signifying electricity, and 
not lightning, or the eleCtric spark, as might perhaps have 
been imagined. In this third letter Franklin is evidently 
describing the famous experiment he himself made on July 
4th, 1752. His language by no means justifies the inference 
that he conceived that he had drawn lightning from the 
clouds ; and it is clear that his experiment was made solely 
to test his preconceived theory of the power of points. To 
all persons having a sound elementary conception of elec- 
tricity it is abundantly evident that what Franklin effected 
in this experiment, and what his contemporaries — D’Alibard, 
De Romas, and Beccaria — effected with simpler apparatus 
(merely ordinary iron lightning rods with slight gaps in their 
length), was only to elicit manifestations, during thunder- 
storms, of the presence of Terrestrial Electricity, primarily 
in the earth below, secondarily and consequently in the 
thunder-clouds above. These manifestations were the 
sparks or flashes that passed across the air-gaps left in the 
apparatus. There was no explosion of the terrestrial con- 
denser formed by the earth, the clouds, and the intervening 
atmospheric dielectric, — such as must happen when a 
thunderbolt occurs ; and there was necessarily none of that 
luminous demonstration of the aCtion of thunderbolts rightly 
known as lightning. 
The fourth important communication from Franklin on 
these subjects is dated September, 1753, or about a year 
later. After referring to the question whether the direction 
of a thunderbolt discharge is usually descending or ascending, 
and coming to the conclusion that “ ’t is the earth that 
strikes into the clouds, and not the clouds that strike into 
the earth,” he states that, in either case,- “ pointed rods 
fixed on buildings or masts of ships, and communicating 
with the earth or sea, must be of the same service in 
restoring the equilibrium silently between the earth and the 
clouds, or in conducting a flash or stroke , if one should be , so 
