"I then felt what I know not well how to describe, a universal blow throughout my whole body from head to foot, which seemed within as well as without; after which the first thing I took notice of was a violent, quick shaking of my body, which gradually remitting, my sense as gradually returned, and then, I thought the bottle must be discharged, but could not conceive how, till at last I perceived the chain in my hand, and recollected what I had been about to do. "That part of my hand and fingers which held the chain, was left white as though the blood had been driven out; and remained so eight or ten minutes after, feeling like dead flesh; and I had numbness in my arms and the back of my neck which continued to the next morning, but wore off." Franklin was much mortified at his awkwardness in this experiment. He declared it to be a notorious blunder, and compared it with the folly of the Irishman, who wishing to steal some gun-powder, bored a hole through the cask with red hot iron. But notwithstanding this warning, not long afterwards, in endeavoring to give a shock to a paralytic patient, he received the whole charge himself, and was knocked flat and senseless on the floor. In the spring of 1752, Franklin tried his world renowned experiment with the kite. A June thunder cloud was rising in all its majesty. Franklin, accompanied by his son, repaired to a field secretly, being afraid of the ridicule of the people. Here he raised the kite, made of a large silk handkerchief. The top of the perpendicular stick was pointed with a sharp metallic rod. The string was hemp with the exception of the part held in the hand, which was silk; at the end of the hempen string a common key was suspended. With intense anxiety and no slight apprehension of danger, he held the line. Soon he observed the fibres of the hempen string to rise and separate themselves, as was the case of the hair on the head, when any one was placed on an insulating stool. He applied his knuckle to the key, and received an unmistakable spark. As the story is generally told, with occasionally slight contradictions, he applied his knuckle again and again to the key with a similar result. He charged a Leyden jar with the fluid and both he and his son took a shock. He then drew in his kite, packed up his apparatus and returned to his laboratory probably the most exultant and happy man in this wide world.