"To determine the question whether the clouds that contain lightning are electrified or not, I would propose an experiment to be tried where it may be done conveniently. On the top of some high tower or steeple, place a kind of sentry-box, big enough to contain a man and an electrical stand. From the middle of the stand let an iron rod rise and pass bending out of the door and then upright twenty or thirty feet, pointed very sharp at the end. If the electrical stand be kept clean and dry, a man standing on it, when such clouds are passing low, might be electrified and afford sparks, the rod drawing fire to him from a cloud. If any danger to the man should be apprehended (though I think there would be none), let him stand on the floor of his box, and now and then bring near to the rod the loop of a wire that has one end fastened to the leads, he holding it by a wax handle; so the sparks, if the rod is electrified, will strike from the rod to the wire, and not affect him." The Royal Society "did not think these papers worth printing"! But, happily, Collinson printed them, and they went all over Europe. The demonstration of the lightning theory, which he had wrought out by his own experiments, was made in France, May 10, 1752; and in Philadelphia by Franklin with the kite in the next month, before he had heard of the success in France. Franklin's friend Dalibard tried the French experiment. Here is his account of it, as he sent it to the French Academy, as Roxana translated it for the young people:-- I have had perfect success in following out the course indicated by Mr. Franklin. I had set up at Marly-la-ville, situated six leagues from Paris, in a fine plain at a very elevated level, a round rod of iron, about an inch in diameter, forty feet long, and sharply pointed at its upper extremity. To secure greater fineness at the point, I had it armed with tempered steel, and then burnished, for want of gilding, so as to keep it from rusting; beside that, this iron rod is bent near its lower end into two acute but rounded angles; the first angle is two feet from the lower end, and the second takes a contrary direction at three feet from the first. * * * * *