These literary and scientific contributions sent from London from time to time, excited much interest among the charter members of the Library Company, and principally that of Franklin himself. He had heard something of the new order of phenomena which was just then engaging the attention of European physicists. In the summer of 1746, while on a visit to Boston, his native place, he assisted at a lecture on electricity by a certain Dr. Spence, a Scotchman, who sought to illustrate the properties of electrified bodies by such experiments as could be made with glass tubes and suitable rubbers, the rudimentary apparatus available at the time. Franklin was impressed by what he saw and heard, even though he indulged in a little destructive criticism when he said that the experiments were "imperfectly made," because the lecturer was "not very expert." When Franklin wrote those words, he knew by repeated and painful experience the difficulty of getting satisfactory results from rubbing glass tubes or rotating glass globes, owing to the provoking attraction which plain, untreated glass has for moisture. Knowing this, he might have been less severe in his strictures on his friend, the peripatetic electrician. It is evident, however, that the experiments which he witnessed surprised and pleased him, for, having shortly afterward received some electrical tubes together with a paper of instructions, from his London friend, Peter Collinson, he set to work for himself without delay. We may well say of him that what his right hand found to do, he did calmly, but with all his might. A twelve-month had not elapsed before he wrote: "I never was engaged in any study that so totally engrossed my attention and time as this has lately done; for, what with making experiments when I can be alone and repeating them to my friends and acquaintance who, from the novelty of the thing, come continually in crowds to see them, I have had little leisure for anything else." (1747.) Here we see the calm, persistent character of the philosopher united with the affability and communicativeness of the gentleman.