While efforts were being made on our old continent to establish by long and ingenious dissertations the exact degrees of relationship between lightning and the sparks given out by machines, in America practical experiments were being set about towards solving the problems of electricity. Franklin it was who hit upon the idea of extracting electricity from the clouds for the purpose of investigation. This man of immortal genius, who by his achievements in science, his noble character, and his devotion to his country, has won the admiration and gratitude of posterity, was of humble origin. The son of a soap manufacturer in a small way of business, Benjamin Franklin was born at Boston in 1706. His parents had intended him to go in for science. He was successively an apprentice to a candle manufacturer, a journeyman printer, the head of a big printing firm in Philadelphia, deputy to Congress, an ambassador, and finally President of the Assembly of the States of Pennsylvania. His political record was a great one. No one ever rendered greater services to his country than the diplomatist who signed the peace of 1783, and insured the independence of the United States. It was towards the age of forty that Franklin began his study of electricity. Here is his own account of the memorable experiments to which he owed the greater part of his immense fame:-- "In 1746 I met at Boston a certain Dr. Spence, who came from Scotland. He performed some electrical experiments before me. They were not very perfect, as he was not a man of great ability; but as the subject was new to me they surprised me and interested me in an equal degree. Shortly after my return to Philadelphia, our librarian received as a gift from Pierre Collinson, a member of the Royal Society of London, a tube of glass, together with certain written instructions as to the way in which it should be used for experiments. I seized eagerly on the chance of reproducing what I had seen done at Boston, and with practice I acquired a great facility in performing the experiments indicated to us from England and in devising other ones. I say 'with practice,' because many people came to my house to witness these marvels." After making several discoveries in regard to electricity, Franklin took it into his head to extract the fluid direct from the clouds. He had established the fact that a stem of pointed metal, placed at a great height--on the summit of a building, for instance--served as an attraction to lightning and guided it into the way prepared for it. He had been looking eagerly to the erection of a clock-tower which was being built at this time at Philadelphia; but, tired of waiting and anxious to carry out experiments which should solve all doubts, he had recourse to a more expeditious instrument, and one, as events proved, not less efficacious, for getting into touch with the region of thunder--a kite such as children play with.