He prepared two sticks in the form of a cross, with a silk handkerchief stretched upon them, and with a string attached of suitable length, and set forth on his mission the first time there was a storm. He was accompanied only by his son. Fearing the ridicule that is showered upon failure, he did not take any one else into his confidence. The kite was set flying. A cloud which looked promising passed without result. Others followed, and the excitement with which they were awaited can be imagined. At first there was no spark and no sign of electricity. Presently some filaments of the string began to move, as though they had been pushed out, and a slight rustling could be heard. Franklin now touched the end of the string with his finger, and instantly a spark was given out, followed quickly by others. Thus for the first time the genius of man may be said to have come to grips with lightning, and begun to learn the secret of its existence. This experiment took place in June, 1752, and made an immense sensation throughout the world, and was repeated in other countries, always with the same success. A French magistrate, named de Romas, making use of Franklin's idea as soon as it was known in France, took it into his head to use a kite with raised cross-bars, and in June, 1753, before the full results of Franklin's experiments were made public, secured still more remarkable signs of electricity, having inserted a thread of metal throughout the whole length of the string, which was 260 metres. Later, in 1757, de Romas repeating his experiments during a storm, secured sparks of a surprising size. "Imagine before you," he said, "lances of fire nine or ten feet in length and an inch thick, and making as much noise as pistol shots. In less than an hour I had certainly thirty lances of this length, without reckoning a thousand shorter ones of seven feet and under." Numbers of people, ladies among them, were present at these experiments. They were not without danger, as may be imagined; de Romas was once knocked over by an unusually heavy discharge, but without being seriously hurt. Franklin was the first to turn his experiments to practical account, attaching lightning-conductors to public and private buildings for their protection, and achieving marvellous results; the lightning being caught by the metallic stem and following it obediently into the ground.