But one shower of rain had fallen for the five preceding weeks. The wires, two miles in length, were supported upon baked sticks, and the dry ground was used for the return two miles of the circuit. They found the transmission of the electric fluid to be instantaneous. Dr. Watson made many other experiments which we must pass over. Mr. Ellicott constructed an electrometer for measuring the quantity of electricity. Mr. Maimbury, at Edinburgh, electrified two myrtle trees, during the month of October, 1746, when they put forth small branches and blossoms sooner than other shrubs of the same kind, which had not been electrified. The same experiment was tried upon seeds, sowed in garden pots with the same success. Mr. Jallabert, Mr. Boze and the Abbé Menon principal of the College of Bueil, at Angers, tried the same experiments upon plants, by electrifying bottles in which they were growing. He proved that electrified plants always grew faster, and had finer stems, leaves and flowers than those which were not electrified. In the year 1748, Dr. Franklin, and his friends, held an _electrical feast_[17] on the banks of the Schuylkill near Philadelphia, and as the account is amusing, as well as scientific, we will give an account of it as related by Franklin, in a letter to his friend Collinson, dated Philadelphia, 1748. (1 vol. of Franklin’s Works, p. 202.) “Chagrined a little that we have been hitherto able to produce nothing in this way of use to mankind; and the hot weather coming on, when electrical experiments are not so agreeable, it is proposed to put an end to them for this season, somewhat humorously, in a party of pleasure, on the banks of the _Skuykil_.” “Spirits, at the same time, are to be fired by a spark sent from side to side through the river, without any other conductor than the water, an experiment which we some time since performed, to the amazement of many. A turkey is to be killed for our dinner by the _electrical shock_, and roasted by the _electrical jack_, before a fire kindled by the _electrified bottle_: when the healths of all the famous electricians of England, Holland, France, and Germany are to be drank in _electrified bumpers_,[18] under a discharge of guns from the _electrical battery_.”