As to the experiment that ingenious Gentleman mentions, and which he thinks conclusive on the other side, I persuade myself he will change his opinion of it, when he considers, that as one person applying the wire of the charged bottle to warm spirits, in a spoon held by another person, both standing on the floor, will fire the spirits, and yet such firing will not determine whether the accumulation was in the glass or the non-electric; so the placing another person between them, standing on wax, with a bason in his hand, into which the water from the phial is pour'd, while he at the instant of pouring presents a finger of his other hand to the spirits, does not at all alter the case; the stream from the phial, the side of the bason, with the arms and body of the person on the wax, being altogether but as one long wire, reaching from the internal surface of the phial to the spirits.

June 29th, 1751[?]. In Captain Waddell's account of the effects of lightning on his ship, I could not but take notice of the large comazants (as he calls them) that settled on the spintles at the top-mast heads, and burned like very large torches (before the stroke). According to my opinion, the electrical fire was then drawing off, as by points, from the cloud; the largeness of the flame betokening the great quantity of electricity in the cloud: and had there been a good wire communication from the spintle heads to the sea, that could have conducted more freely than tarred ropes, or masts of turpentine wood, I imagine there would either have been no stroke; or, if a stroke, the wire would have conducted it all into the sea without damage to the ship.

His compasses lost the virtue of the loadstone, or the

poles were reversed; the North point turning to the South. By Electricity we have (here at Philadelphia) frequently given polarity to needles, and reversed it at pleasure. Mr. Wilson, at London, tried it on too large masses, and with too small force.

A shock from four large glass jars, sent through a fine sewing-needle, gives it polarity, and it will traverse when laid on water. If the needle when struck lies East and West, the end entered by the electric blast points North. If it lies North and South, the end that lay towards the North will continue to point North when placed on water, whether the fire entered at that end, or at the contrary end.

The Polarity given is strongest when the Needle is struck lying North and South, weakest when lying East and West; perhaps if the force was still greater, the South end, enter'd by the fire, (when the needle lies North and South) might become the North, otherwise it puzzles us to account for the inverting of compasses by lightning; since their needles must always be found in that situation, and by our little Experiments, whether the blast entered the North and went out at the South end of the needle, or the contrary, still the end that lay to the North should continue to point North.

In these experiments the ends of the needles are sometimes finely blued like a watch-spring by the electric flame. This colour given by the flash from two jars only, will wipe off, but four jars fix it, and frequently melt the needles. I send you some that have had their heads and points melted off by our mimic lightning; and a pin, that had its point melted off, and some part of its head and neck run.

Sometimes the surface on the body of the needle is also run, and appears blister'd when examined by a magnifyingglass. The jars I make use of hold 7 or 8 gallons, and are coated and lined with tin-foil; each of them takes a thousand turns1 of a globe nine inches diameter to charge it. I send you two specimens of tin-foil melted between glass, by the force of two jars only.

I have not heard that any of your European electricians have ever been able to fire gunpowder by the electric flame. We do it here in this manner. A small cartridge is filled with dry powder, hard rammed, so as to bruise some of the grains; two pointed wires are then thrust in, one at each end, the points approaching each other in the middle of the cartridge till within the distance of half an inch; then, the cartridge being placed in the circle, when the four jars are discharged, the electric flame leaping from the point of one wire to the point of the other, within the cartridge amongst the powder, fires it, and the explosion of the powder is at the same instant with the crack of the discharge. Yours, &c.

B. FRANKLIN.

96. TO PETER COLLINSON 2

SIR, Philadelphia, July 29, 1750. As you first put us on electrical experiments, by sending to our library company a tube, with directions how to use it; and as our honourable proprietary enabled us to carry

1 The cushion being afterwards covered with a long flap of buckskin, which might cling to the globe, and care being taken to keep that flap of a due temperature; between too dry and too moist, we found so much more of the electric fluid was obtained, as that 150 turns were sufficient. 1753.

2 From "Experiments and Observations on Electricity," London, 1769,

those experiments to a greater height, by his generous present of a compleat electrical apparatus; 'tis fit that both should know, from time to time, what progress we make. It was in this view I wrote and sent you my former papers on this subject, desiring, that, as I had not the honour of a direct correspondence with that bountiful benefactor to our library, they might be communicated to him through your hands. In the same view I write and send you this additional paper. If it happens to bring you nothing new, (which may well be, considering the number of ingenious men in Europe, continually engaged in the same researches) at least it will show, that the instruments put into our hands are not neglected; and, that if no valuable discoveries are made by us, whatever the cause may be, it is not want of industry and application.

I am, Sir, your much obliged Humble Servant,

B. FRANKLIN.

97. Opinions and Conjectures, concerning the Properties and Effects of the Electrical Matter, arising from Experiments and Observations, made at Philadelphia, 1749.1

§ 1. THE electrical matter consists of particles extremely subtile, since it can permeate common matter, even the densest metals, with such ease and freedom as not to receive any perceptible resistance.

2. If any one should doubt whether the electrical matter passes thro' the substance of bodies, or only over and along their surfaces, a shock from an electrified large glass jar, taken through his own body, will probably convince him.

1 From "Experiments and Observations on Electricity," London, 1769, P. 54.

3. Electrical matter differs from common matter in this, that the parts of the latter mutually attract, those of the former mutually repel, each other. Hence the appearing divergency in a stream of electrified effluvia.

4. But though the particles of electrical matter do repel each other, they are strongly attracted by all other matter.1

5. From these three things, the extreme subtilty of the electrical matter, the mutual repulsion of its parts, and the strong attraction between them and other matter, arise this effect, that, when a quantity of electrical matter is applied to a mass of common matter, of any bigness or length, within our observation, (which hath not already got its quantity) it is immediately and equally diffused through the whole.

6. Thus, common matter is a kind of spunge to the electrical fluid. And as a spunge would receive no water if the parts of water were not smaller than the pores of the spunge; and even then but slowly, if there were not a mutual attraction between those parts and the parts of the spunge; and would still imbibe it faster, if the mutual attraction among the parts of the water did not impede, some force being required to separate them; and fastest, if, instead of attraction, there were a mutual repulsion among those parts, which would act in conjunction with the attraction of the spunge; so is the case between the electrical and common matter.

7. But in common matter there is (generally) as much of the electrical, as it will contain within its substance. If

1 See the ingenious Essays on Electricity, in the Transactions, by Mr. Ellicot.-F.