And of which bit of verse Franklin once dryly remarked, that as to the thunder, he left it where he found it, and that more than a million of his countrymen co-operated with him in snatching the sceptre. Those persons who knew Franklin, the inventor, only as the genius to whom we owe the lightning-rod, will be amazed at the range of his activity. For half a century his mind seems to have been on the alert concerning the why and wherefore of every phenomenon for which the explanation was not apparent. Nothing in nature failed to interest him. Had he lived in an era of patents he might have rivalled Edison in the number of his patentable devices, and had he chosen to make money from such devices, his gains would certainly have been fabulous. As a matter of fact, Franklin never applied for a patent, though frequently urged to do so, and he made no money by his inventions. One of the most popular of these, the Franklin stove, which device, after a half-century of disuse, is now again popular, he made a present to his early friend, Robert Grace, an iron founder, who made a business of it. The Governor of Pennsylvania offered to give Franklin a monopoly of the sale of these stoves for a number of years. "But I declined it," writes the inventor, "from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz.: That as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously. An ironmonger in London, however, assuming a good deal of my pamphlet (describing the principle and working of the stove), and working it up into his own, and making some small change in the machine, which rather hurt its operation, got a patent for it there, and made, as I was told, a little fortune by it." [Illustration: The Franklin Stove.] The complete list of inventions, devices, and improvements of which Franklin was the originator, or a leading spirit and contributor, is so long a one that a dozen pages would not suffice for it. I give here a brief summary, as compiled by Parton in his excellent "Life of Franklin." "It is incredible," Franklin once wrote, "the quantity of good that may be done in a country by a single man who will _make a business_ of it and not suffer himself to be diverted from that purpose by different avocations, studies, or amusements." As a commentary upon this sentiment, here is a catalogue of the achievements of Benjamin Franklin that may fairly come under the title of inventions: He established and inspired the Junto, the most useful and pleasant American club of which we have knowledge. He founded the Philadelphia Library, parent of a thousand libraries, and which marked the beginning of an intellectual movement of endless good to the whole country. He first turned to great account the engine of advertising, an indispensable element in modern business.