The beginner's American history . to go up tothe picture and take offthe kings crown. Whythats easy enough, a manwould say, and would walkup and seize the no sooner had hetouched it than he wouldget an electric shock whichwould make his fingerstingle as they never tin-gled before. With a loud Oh ! Oh! he would let go ofthe crown, and start back in utter astonishment, not know-ing what had hurt him. 119. The electrical kite. — But Franklins greatest experi-ment was made one day in sober earnest with a kite. Hebelieved that the electricity in the bottle, or Leyden Jar,was the same thin
The beginner's American history . to go up tothe picture and take offthe kings crown. Whythats easy enough, a manwould say, and would walkup and seize the no sooner had hetouched it than he wouldget an electric shock whichwould make his fingerstingle as they never tin-gled before. With a loud Oh ! Oh! he would let go ofthe crown, and start back in utter astonishment, not know-ing what had hurt him. 119. The electrical kite. — But Franklins greatest experi-ment was made one day in sober earnest with a kite. Hebelieved that the electricity in the bottle, or Leyden Jar,was the same thing as the lightning we see in a thunder-storm. He knew well enough how to get an electric sparkfrom the jar, for he had once killed a turkey with it fordinner; but how could he get a spark from a cloud in thesky ? He thought about it for a long time; then he made akite out of a silk handkerchief, and fastened a sharp ironpoint to the upright stick of the kite. One day, when athunder-storm was seen coming up, Franklin and his son. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 89 went out to the fields. The kite was raised ; then FrankHntied an iron key to the lower end of the string. Afterwaiting some time, he saw the little hair-like threads ofthe string begin to stand up like the bristles of a felt certain that the electricity was coming xiown thestring. He put his knuckle close to the key, and a sparkflew out. Next, he tookhis Leyden Jar and collec-ted the electricity in had made two greatdiscoveries, for he hadfound out that electricityand lightning are the samething and he had alsofound how to fill his bottledirectly from the clouds:that was something that noone had ever done before. 120. Franklin invents the lightning-rod; Doctor Franklin.— But Franklin did not stop at that. He said, If I candraw down electricity from the sky with a kite-string, I candraw it still better with a tall, sharp-pointed iron rod. Heput up such a rod on his house in Philadelphia; it was thefirst lightni
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