By means of an iron rod he brought
down electricity into his house, where he studied its effect upon bells
and concluded that clouds were generally negatively electrified. In
June, 1752, he performed the famous experiment with the kite, drawing
down electricity from the clouds and charging a Leyden jar from the key
at the end of the string.

Franklin's letters to Collinson were read before the Royal Society
but were unnoticed. Collinson gathered them together, and they were
published in a pamphlet which attracted wide attention. Translated into
French, they created great excitement, and Franklin's conclusions were
generally accepted by the scientific men of Europe. The Royal Society,
tardily awakened, elected Franklin a member and in 1753 awarded him the
Copley medal with a complimentary address.*

* It may be useful to mention some of the scientific facts and
mechanical principles which were known to Europeans at this time.
More than one learned essay has been written to prove the mechanical
indebtedness of the modern world to the ancient, particularly to the
works of those mechanically minded Greeks: Archimedes, Aristotle,
Ctesibius, and Hero of Alexandria. The Greeks employed the lever, the
tackle, and the crane, the force-pump, and the suction-pump. They had
discovered that steam could be mechanically applied, though they never
made any practical use of steam. In common with other ancients they
knew the principle of the mariner's compass. The Egyptians had the
water-wheel and the rudimentary blast-furnace. The pendulum clock
appears to have been an invention of the Middle Ages. The art of
printing from movable type, beginning with Gutenberg about 1450, helped
to further the Renaissance. The improved mariner's compass enabled
Columbus to find the New world; gunpowder made possible its conquest.
The compound microscope and the first practical telescope came from the
spectacle makers of Middelburg, Holland, the former about 1590 and the
latter about 1608. Harvey, an English physician, had discovered the
circulation of the blood in 1628, and Newton, an English mathematician,
the law of gravitation in 1685.

If Franklin's desire to continue his scientific researches had been
gratified, it is possible that he might have discovered some of the
secrets for which the world waited until Edison and his contemporaries
revealed them more than a century later. Franklin's scientific
reputation has grown with the years, and s