“I am glad to see you grasp the close resemblance between thunder and the electricity that we produce by rubbing certain bodies. De Romas made his perilous experiment on purpose to prove that resemblance. I said perilous experiment; you will see, in fact, what danger the audacious experimenter ran. Three straws, I told you, were jumping from the string to the ground, and from the ground to the string, when all at once everybody turned pale with fright: there came a violent explosion and a thunderbolt fell, making a large hole in the ground and raising a cloud of dust.” “My goodness!” gasped Claire. “Was de Romas killed?” “No, de Romas was safe and beaming with joy: his previsions were verified with a success that bordered on the prodigious: it was demonstrated that a thunderbolt can be brought from the clouds within reach of the observer; he had proved that electricity is the cause of thunder. That, my children, was no trivial result, fit only to satisfy our curiosity: the nature of thunder being ascertained, it became possible to secure protection from its ravages, as I will tell you in the story of the lightning-conductor.” “De Romas, who made these important experiments at the peril of his life, must have been loaded with honors and riches by his contemporaries,” said Claire. “Alas! my dear child,” replied her uncle, “things do not commonly happen that way. Truth rarely finds any free spot in which to plant itself; it has to fight against prejudice and ignorance. The battle is sometimes so painful, that men of strong will succumb to the task. De Romas, wishing to repeat his experiment at Bordeaux, was stoned by the mob, who saw in him a dangerous man evoking thunder by his witchcraft. He was obliged to flee in haste, abandoning his apparatus. “A short time before de Romas, in the United States of North America, Franklin made similar researches on the nature of thunder. Benjamin Franklin was the son of a poor soap-manufacturer. He found at home merely the requisite means for learning to read, write, and cipher; and yet he became by his learning one of the most remarkable men of his time. One stormy day in 1752 he went into the country near Philadelphia, accompanied by his son, who carried a kite made of silk tied at the four corners to two little glass rods. A metal tail terminated the apparatus. The kite was thrown up toward a storm-cloud. At first nothing happened to confirm the learned American’s previsions: the string gave no sign of electricity. Rain came on. The wet string let the electricity circulate more freely; and Franklin, without thinking of the danger he ran, and transported with joy at thus stealing its secret from the thunder, elicited with his finger a shower of sparks strong enough to set fire to spirits of wine.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXXIX THUNDER AND THE LIGHTNING-ROD