Stories of Invention, Told by Inventors and their FriendsHale, Edward Everett
History
Stories of Invention, Told by Inventors and their Friends
Hale, Edward Everett
Inventions; Inventors; Technology -- Juvenile literature
The thunder-clap which caused this event was followed by no other; it
all ended in a great quantity of hail. I was so occupied with what I saw
at the moment of the experiment, that, having been struck on the arm a
little above my elbow, I cannot say whether it was in touching the wire
or the rod, I was not even aware of the injury which the blow had given
me at the moment when I received it; but as the pain continued, on my
return home I uncovered my arm before Coiffier, and we perceived a
bruised mark winding round the arm, like what a wire would have made if
my bare flesh had been struck by it. As I was going back from Coiffier's
house, I met Monsieur le Vicaire, Monsieur de Milly, and the
schoolmaster, to whom I related what had just happened. They all three
declared that they smelt an odor of sulphur, which struck them more as
they approached me. I carried the same odor home with me, and my
servants noticed it without my having said anything to them about it.
This, Monsieur, is an account given in haste, but simple and true, which
I attest, and you may depend on my being ready to give evidence of this
event on every opportunity. Coiffier was the first who made the
experiment, and repeated it several times; it was only on account of
what he had seen that he sent to ask me to come. If other witnesses than
he and I are necessary, you will find them. Coiffier is in haste to set
out.
I am, with respectful consideration, Monsieur,
Yours, &c.,
[Signed] RAULET, _Prior of Marly_.
MAY 10, 1752.
"I do not understand," said Uncle Fritz, "how it happened that no one
attempted the experiment before. Franklin had proposed it, very
distinctly, in 1750. His friend Dr. Stuber says that he was waiting for
the erection of a steeple in Philadelphia. You see, the Quakers, who had
founded this city, would have none; they derided what they called
'steeple-houses,' little foreseeing what advantage could be drawn from a
steeple.
"Meanwhile, in 1750, in October, he did take a view of New York from the
'Dutch Church steeple,' which had been struck by lightning in the spring
of that year. And here he was able to confirm his theory, by seeing that
'wire is a good conductor of lightning, as it is of electricity.'"
MUSICAL GLASSES.
While some of the children were reading these electrical passages,
others were turning over the next volume; and to their great delight,
they found a picture of the "Musical Glasses."
"I never had the slightest idea what musical glasses were," said Jack;
and he spouted from Goldsmith the passage from "The Vicar of Wakefield,"
where the fashionable ladies from London talked about "Shakspeare and
the musical glasses."
"Were they Dr. Franklin's musical glasses?"
"I never thought of that," said Uncle Fritz, well pleased; "but I think
it is so. John, look and see what year 'The Vicar of Wakefield' was
written in."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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