hen a thunder-storm was seen coming up,
Franklin and his son went out to the fields. The kite was raised;
then Franklin tied an iron key to the lower end of the string. After
waiting some time, he saw the little hair-like threads of the string
begin to stand up like the bristles of a brush. He felt certain that
the electricity was coming down the string. He put his knuckle close
to the key, and a spark flew out. Next, he took his Leyden Jar and
collected the electricity in that. He had made two great discoveries,
for he had found out that electricity and lightning are the same thing
and he had also found how to fill his bottle directly from the clouds:
that was something that no one had ever done before.

[Illustration: FRANKLIN FLYING A KITE.]

120. Franklin invents the lightning-rod; _Doctor_ Franklin.--But
Franklin did not stop at that. He said, If I can draw down electricity
from the sky with a kite-string, I can draw it still better with a
tall, sharp-pointed iron rod. He put up such a rod on his house in
Philadelphia; it was the first lightning-rod in the world. Soon other
people began to put them up: so this was another gift of his to the
city which he loved. Every good lightning-rod which has since been
erected to protect buildings has been a copy of that invented by
Franklin.

People now began to talk, not only in this country but in Europe,
about his electrical experiments and discoveries. The oldest college
in Scotland[18] gave him a title of honor and called him Doctor--a
word which means a learned man. From this time, Franklin the printer
was no longer plain Mr. Franklin, but Dr. Franklin.

Dr. Franklin did not think that he had found out all that could be
found out about electricity; he believed that he had simply made a
beginning, and that other men would discover still greater things
that could be done with it. Do you think he was mistaken about that?

[Footnote 18: The University of St. Andrews.]

121. Franklin in the Revolutionary War; Franklin and the map of the
United States.--When the war of the Revolution broke out, Dr.
Franklin did a great work for his country. He did not fight battles
like Washington, but he did something just as useful. First, he
helped write the Declaration of Independence, by which we declared
ourselves free from the rule of the king of England; next, he went
to France to get aid for us. We were then too poor to pay our soldiers;
he got the king of France to let us