To a common kite, made of silk rather than paper, because of the rain, he fixed a slender iron point. The string which he chose for his kite was of silk, because of the fondness of lightning for silk; and for the same reason, at the lower end of the string he tied a key. With this simple preparation, he went out on the commons back of Philadelphia, as a thundergust was coming on, and raised his kite towards the clouds. The lightning soon found out his metallic rod, as it soared aloft on the wings of the kite, and greeted its polished point with a cordial kiss. With joy he beheld the loose fibres of his string raised by the fond salute of the celestial visitant. He hastened to clap his knuckle to the key, and behold, a smart spark! having repeated a second, and a third time, he charged a phial with this strange visitor from the clouds, and found that it exploded gunpowder, set spirits of wine on fire, and performed in all respects as the electrical fluid. It is not easy to express the pleasure which this clear confirmation of his theory must have given to our benevolent philosopher, who had already counted up some of the great services which he should thereby render to the world. He lost no time in communicating these discoveries to his friend Collinson in London, by whom they were read with unimaginable joy. Collinson instantly laid them before the Royal Society, not doubting but they would be printed among their papers, with the same enthusiasm which he had felt. But to his great mortification they were utterly rejected. Upon this, Collinson went in high dudgeon and printed them himself, which was looked on as a very desperate kind of undertaking, especially as he chose for his book, a title that seemed to carry a death warrant on its face, _viz._ "NEW EXPERIMENTS ON ELECTRICITY, MADE AT PHILADELPHIA, IN NORTH AMERICA." Some ventured however to read the EXPERIMENTS ON ELECTRICITY MADE IN NORTH AMERICA, though with pretty nearly such motives as usually lead people to see the learned pig, or to hear a woman preach. But the scoffers were soon turned into admirers. Discoveries so new and astonishing, presented in a manner so simple, struck every reader with admiration and pleasure. The book soon crossed the British channel, and was translated into most of the languages of Europe. A copy of it, though miserably translated, had the fortune to fall into the hands of the celebrated Buffon, who immediately repeated the experiments and with the most complete success. Lewis XV. hearing of these curious exhibitions, expressed a wish to be a spectator of them. A course of experiments was made before him and his court, to their exceeding surprise and diversion, by Buffon and De Lor. The history of electricity has not recorded those experiments. But it is probable, that they were not of so comic a character as the following, wherewith Dr. Franklin would sometimes astonish and delight his Philadelphia friends, during the intervals of his severer studies.