and gilt to
prevent rusting, and from the foot of those rods a wire down 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 enough to strike, and thereby secure us from that
most sudden and terrible mischief?"

A great discovery was at hand.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE GREAT DISCOVERY.

IT was a June day, 1752--one of the longest days of the year. Benjamin
Franklin was then forty-six years of age.

The house garden was full of bloom; the trees were in leafage, and there
was the music of blooms in the hives of the bees.

Beyond the orchards and great trees the majestic Delaware rolled in
purple splendor, dotted with slanting sails.

Nature was at the full tide of the year. The river winds swept over the
meadows in green waves, where the bobolinks toppled in the joy of their
songs.

It had been a hot morning, and billowy clouds began to rise in the still
heat on the verge of the sky.

Benjamin Franklin sat amid the vines and roses of his door.

"William," he said to his son, "I am expecting a shower to-day. I have
long been looking for one. I want you to remain with me and witness an
experiment that I am about to make."

Silence Dogood, or Father Franklin, then brought a kite out to the green
lawn. The kite had a very long hempen string, and to the end of it,
which he held in his hand, he began to attach some silk and a key.

"When I was a boy," said Franklin, "and lived in the town of Boston by
the marshes, I made a curious experiment with a kite. I let it tow me
along the water where I went swimming. I have always liked flying kites.
I hope that this one will bring me good luck should a shower come."

"What do you expect to do with it, father?"

"If the cloud comes up with thunder, and lightning be electricity, I am
going to try to secure a spark from the sky."

The air was still. The cloud was growing into mountain-like peaks. The
robins and thrushes were singing lustily in the trees, as before a
shower. The men in the cornfields and gardens paused in their work.

Presently a low sound of thunder rolled along the sky. The cloud now
loomed high and darkened in the still, hot air.

"It is coming," said Franklin, "and the cloud will be a thunder gust. It
is early in the season for such a cloud as that. See how bla