Experiments and observations on electricity, made at Philadelphia in America / by Mr. Benjamin Franklin.

  • Benjamin Franklin
Date:
1751
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Experiments and observations on electricity, made at Philadelphia in America / by Mr. Benjamin Franklin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    4/94
    He exhibits to our confideration, an invifible, fubtile mat- dijfeminatcd through all nature in various proportions,- equally unobferved, whilfi all thofe bodies to which it pecu¬ liarly adheres are alike charged with it, inofi'enfive. He jhews, however, f&z/ if unequal dijlribution is by- any means brought about; if there is a coacervation in one. pai't of fpace, *z lefs propoiAon, vacuity, . ther • the near approach of a body capable of conduct¬ ing the coacervated part to the emptier fpace, 2V becomes perhaps the moft formidable and irrefiflible agent in the uni- verfe. Animals are in an Infant fir uck breathlefs, bodies almofi impervious by any force yet known, <zr£ perforatedand metals fufed by it, <2 moment. From the fimilar effects of lightening and electricity our author has been led to make fame prop able conjectures on the caufe of the f ormer -, and at the fame time, to propofa fame ratio?7al experiments in order to fecure our[elves, *7/2/ thofe things oil which its force is often directed, from its perni¬ cious effects; <2 circumftance of no fmall importance to the, publick, and therefore worthy of the utmofi attention. /if has, indeed, Z^/2 of late the fajhion to aferibe every grand or unufual operation of nature, fuch as lightening and. earthquakes, to electricity 3 not, as one would imagine, from the maimer of reafajiing on thefa occafions, that the authors of thefe fchemes have, difeovered any connection betwixt the caufe and efifeCt, or faw in what manner they were related; but, as it woidd feem, merely becaufa they were unacquainted with any other agent, of which it could not pofitively be [aid the con¬ nection was impofible. But of thefe, and many other interefting circumfiances, the reader will be more fatisfaCiorily informed in the following letters, to which he is therefore referred by The EDITOR.