Just previous to this there had been some brilliant experiments carried on in France, and the discharge had been conveyed through twelve thousand feet of circuit, including the acre basin of the Tuileries, but they had not been performed as systematically, or with the definite objects in view, as had the English experiments. The following year the Royal Society continued its researches on a larger scale than previously, using 12,276 feet of wire, and found that even through that length the velocity was practically instantaneous. Watson urged as a theory that electrical disturbances were caused by influx or efflux of a single electric fluid from the state of normal electrification, thus differing from Dufay in his opinion as to the existence of two fluids. He was led to this belief by observing that he obtained a larger spark between two oppositely electrified bodies than from either to the earth. From this time on there appears upon the scene a host of workers in this field, one of the most prominent being the distinguished American, Benjamin Franklin. Somewhat previous to his remarkable work, or about 1750, Boze made certain discoveries in the matter of the surface tension of conducting liquids being diminished by electrification, and Mowbray and Nollet ascertained that the vegetation of flowers and of vegetating seeds was hastened by electrifying them. Franklin (born 1706, died 1790) made the important discovery of the active discharge of electricity from an electrified body by points as well as the converse of it--i. e., that electricity was rapidly abstracted from a charged atmosphere by points. This enabled him to increase the efficiency of the electrical machine by adding a comb-shaped series of points to the collector of the prime conductor.