The Life of Benjamin Franklin Part 21

Sometimes, in order to show them the force of electricity he would turn his wires against a pack of cards, or a quire of paper, and the subtle fluid would instantly dart through, leaving a beautiful perforation like the puncture of a large needle.

Sometimes, to show the wondrous qualities of electricity, he would let them see it darting, like a diamond bead, through a long cylinder of water, not hurt, like other fires, by that element.

Sometimes he would place a young lady, generally the handsomest of the company, on his electrical stool; then by slily touching her dress with his magic wand, he would so fill her lovely frame with the electric fluid, that, on the approach of any young gentleman to kiss her, a spark from her ruby lips would suddenly drive him frightened and staggering back. This was called the "MAGIC KISS."

Sometimes he would fix figures of horses cut in paper, on wires nicely poised, so as to move in circles round his prime conductor, then, from his magic wand, he would dash on them a stream of mimic lightning, which, potent as the whips and spurs of Newmarket, would set them all in full speed, bending and buckling with glorious emulation in the beautiful contest, to the great amus.e.m.e.nt of the spectators. The public named this the "ELECTRICAL HORSE RACE."

Sometimes he would suspend, near the ceiling, a large flock of finely picked cotton, or place on a distant table, a paper of gunpowder; then from his wires, artfully directed, he would send a flash of lightning, instantly exploding the powder, and wrapping the cotton into a blaze.

Sometimes he would take the model of a double-geared water mill, turning two pair of stones, and placing it near his prime conductor, direct a stream of electric fire against the large wheel, setting it in motion, and with it the whole machinery of his mill, to the equal surprise and pleasure of the beholders.

Sometimes he would take the figures of the sun, moon, and earth, cut in papers, and fix them on wires, nicely balanced. Then, by the force of the electric fluid, he would set them a-going in most harmonious style--the earth revolving round her own axis; the moon round the earth; and both round the sun; all exactly according to the course which the hand of the Creator had prescribed to these mighty orbs.

For the sake of those who have never considered this wonderful attraction of lightning to iron rods, I beg leave to relate the following very extraordinary and daring experiments of Dr. Franklin.

In a large chamber, which he kept for his electrical apparatus and experiments, he suspended a number of bells, all connected by wires, and communicating, through the gable end of the house, with the large lightning rods that descended along the chimney to the ground. His aim in this contrivance was, that he might know whenever a lightning cloud pa.s.sed over his house in the night; and also what freight of electrical fluid it carried about with it. For, as it seldom pa.s.ses, without paying a loving visit to his rod, so it always told, with great honesty, the amount of its inflammable cargo, especially if it was ample; in which case, it was always sure to set the bells a ringing at a terrible rate.

And besides these, he had numbers of men and women of the Lilliputian stature, cut in paper, and so artfully attached to the clappers, that as soon as the bells began to ring, the men and women began to dance also, and all of them more and more merrily, according as this extraordinary kind of music played up more briskly. But though, for the amus.e.m.e.nt of his friends, Franklin would sometimes set his bells and dolls to ringing and dancing, by his electricity, yet his main object was, to invite the lightnings to be the bell ringers, and dancing masters to his puppets, that, as before observed, he might become better acquainted with the nature of lightning, and thus extend his electrical experiments and knowledge.

But it must be owned, that when the lightnings were drawn down for this purpose among the bells and wires of his chamber, the entertainment was almost too terrible to be agreeable to any but philosophers.

The elegant J. d.i.c.kinson, Esq. informed me, that he was at Dr.

Franklin's one evening, with a large party, when a dreadful cloud began to rise, with distant thunder and lightning. The ladies, panic struck, as usual, were all in a prodigious bustle for their bonnets, to get home. The doctor entreated them not to be frightened; for that they were in the safest house in Philadelphia; and indeed, jokingly offered to underwrite their lives at the low premium of a groat a head.

When the storm was near its worst, he invited his company up into his large chamber. A glimmering light faintly showed them his electrical apparatus of globes, cylinders, bells, wires, and the Lord knows what, conveying to those of the superst.i.tious sort, a strong idea of a magic cell, or a haunted castle, at least. Presently a dreadful clap of thunder shook the house over their heads, the chamber was filled with vivid lightnings, darting like fiery serpents, crackling and hissing along the wire all around them, while the strong smell of sulphur, together with the screams of the poor ladies, and the ringing of the bells, completed the terribleness of the scene, inspiring a fearful sense of the invisible world.

"_But all these things, gentlemen_," he would say, smiling all the time on his crowding and gaping friends, as a parent on his children, whom he saw surprised at small matters, "_all these things are mere nothings; the childish sportings of an art but yet in its cradle_.

ELECTRICITY, gentlemen, is of the terrible family of lightning, that most powerful of the works of G.o.d on this globe, and the chosen instrument of most of his operations here below. It is the electric fluid, (pa.s.sing from a full cloud to an empty one,) that makes his voice, and that, as the scripture says, _a terrible voice_, even the THUNDER, to terrify the guilty, and to increase in the virtuous a becoming reverence of the Creator. For if the electric fluid pa.s.sing from a small jar, cause so loud a crack, why should we wonder at the dreadful peals of thunder that are occasioned, when thousands and myriads of acres of clouds are throwing off their electric fluid in rivers of living fires, sufficient to blow up the globe itself, if the Almighty were but to let loose his hold on these furious agents. And this electric fluid is that same lightning which, as David says, _shines out from one end of Heaven to another_, and that so instantaneously, that were all the men, women, and children, on earth, joining hands, to form a ring round this great globe, an electric shock given to the first person in that ring, would so suddenly reach the last, that they themselves would probably be at a loss to determine which of them received it first.

"Thus the electric fluid, in the form of lightning, serves also in the hand of heaven as the _red rod_ to restrain the vicious. Does the benevolent governor of the world seek to impress a salutary awe on the gambler, the drunkard, and such immoral characters, whose lives are in constant opposition to their own and the happiness of others? He but speaks to his ready ministers, the lightnings. Quickly, from the sultry cloud, coming up with muttering thunder, black and terrible as nature's approaching pall, the frightening flash bursts forth, rending the trees and houses over their heads; killing their flocks and herds; and filling the air with smoking sulphur, a strong memento of that dismal place to which their evil practices are leading them. And when, to unthinking mortals, he sees fit to read instruction on a wider scale, he only needs but beckon to the ELECTRIC FLUID. Straightway this subtle servant of his power rushes forth, clad in various forms of terror, sometimes as the roaring WHIRLWIND, unroofing the palaces of kings, and desolating the forests in its course. Sometimes with dreadful stride it rushes forth upon the 'howling wilderness of waves,' in shape of the funnelled water-spout, with hideous roar and foam, whirling the frightened billows to the clouds, or dashing them back with thundering crash into their dismal gulphs; while the hearts of the seamen, looking on, sink with terror at the sight, and even sharks and sea-monsters fly for refuge to their oozy caverns.

"Sometimes, with the bolder aim of the earthquake, it strikes both sea and land at once, sending the frightened globe bellowing and trembling along her orbit, sadly pondering the coming day, when the measure of sin being filled up, she shall be wrapt in these _same electric fires_, perhaps, and lose her place for ever among the starry train."

But though the experiments above mentioned are highly curious; and also Dr. Franklin's reflections on them abundantly philosophical and correct, for what I know, yet the world should learn that the gratification of public curiosity formed but a very small part of his many and grand discoveries in electricity. For soon as he had ascertained that lightning was the same thing with the electric fluid, and like it, so pa.s.sionately fond of iron that it would forsake every thing else in its course, to run along upon that beloved metal, he conceived the plan of putting this discovery to those beneficent uses for which alone he thought the power of discovery was given to man, and which alone can consecrate it to the divine Giver.

"_The_ GRAND _practical use_," says the learned Mr. Immison, who, though a Scotch monarchist himself, had the extraordinary virtue to be a profound admirer of our republican American,--"the grand practical use which Dr. Franklin made of this discovery was to secure houses and ships from being damaged by lightning; a thing of vast consequence in all parts of the world, but more especially in North America, where thunder gusts are more frequent and their effects, in that dry air, more dreadful than they are ever known to be with us. This great end he accomplished by the cheap, and seemingly trifling, apparatus of a pointed metallic rod, fixed higher than any part of the building, and communicating with the ground, or rather the nearest water. This rod the lightning is sure to seize upon preferably to any other part of the building, unless it be very large; in which case, rods may be erected at each extremity; by which means this dangerous power is safely conducted to the earth, and dissipated without doing any harm to the edifice."

Had any thing more been necessary to convince the world of the value of lightning rods to buildings, it was abundantly furnished by several very terrible instances of destruction which took place about this time in several parts of America, for no other reason upon earth, as every one must admit who reads the account, but the want of lightning rods.

There, for example, was the affair of the new church, in the town of Newberry, New-England. This stately building was adorned on its north end with an elegant steeple or tower of wood, running up in a fine square, seventy feet from the ground to the bell, and thence went off in a taper spire of wood, likewise seventy feet higher, to the weatherc.o.c.k. Near the bell was fixed an iron hammer to strike the hours; and from the tail of the hammer, a wire went down through a small gimblet hole in the floor that the bell stood upon, and through a second floor in like manner; then horizontally under the plaistered ceiling of that floor to a plaistered wall, then down that wall to a clock which stood about twenty feet below the bell.

Now come, gentlemen, _you_ who have no faith in lightning rods--you who think it _blasphemy_ to talk of warding off G.o.d ALMIGHTY'S LIGHTNING!--as if it were not just as pleasing to him to see you warding off the lightning by steel rods, as warding off the ague and fever by jesuit's bark; come, I say, and see how very visibly he approbates our works of wisdom, which make us like himself. You have read the structure of this steeple--the top, a _seventy feet spire without any rod_--then a rod that went down zigzag, about thirty feet; then a plaistered brick and stone wall without any rod, to the ground.

A dreadful cloud came over the steeple. At the first flash, away went the whole of the seventy foot wooden spire, scattered all over the church yard in splinters fit to boil the preacher's tea kettle. The lightning then found the iron wire which it instantly seized on, quitting all things else for that, and darting along with it in so close an embrace, as barely to widen a little the gimblet holes through which it pa.s.sed. It then followed the wire in all its meanders, whether perpendicular or horizontal--never turning either to the right or to the left, to hurt the building, but pa.s.sed through it the whole length of the wire, which was about thirty feet, as harmlessly as a lamb. But soon as its dear chain was ended, it a.s.sumed the furious lion again; attacking the building with the most destructive rage, dashing its foundation stones to a great distance, and in other respects damaging it dreadfully.

Now what can be more reasonable than doctor Franklin's remarks on this very remarkable occurrence?

"I. That lightning, in its pa.s.sage through a building, will leave wood, brick, or stone, to pa.s.s as far as it can in metal; and not enter those again, till the metal conductor ceases.

"II. The quant.i.ty of lightning that pa.s.sed through this steeple must have been very great, by its effects on the lofty spire, &c., and yet great as this quant.i.ty was, it was conducted by a small wire without the least damage to the building as far as the wire extended.

"III. Hence it seems probable, that if even such a small wire had been extended from the top of the steeple to the earth, before the storm, no damage would have been done by that stroke of lightning."

A fate exactly similar to this attended the great Dutch church, of New York, in 1750. As far as the wire was extended, which was from the top of the steeple, to within a few feet of the earth, the lightning closely accompanied it, pa.s.sing with it through small holes in the floors, without doing the least damage. But the instant it quitted the wire, it commenced its ravages on the building.

The summer of 1760 was dreadfully hot in Pennsylvania; and the thunder gusts frequent and terrible. Several ships at the wharves were struck and greatly injured. One of them in particular, a very large ship, had her mainmast torn to pieces, and her captain and three seamen killed.

Of houses, both in town and country, many were struck; and some of them, as barns with large quant.i.ties of hay, and warehouses with hemp, were set on fire and destroyed to the great detriment and terror, both of the unfortunate sufferers and their neighbours.

These things, though melancholy in themselves, were not without their good effects. They served to place in the strongest point of view, the admirable efficacy of the newly invented lightening rods. For, while buildings dest.i.tute of them, were often struck, and sometimes with great loss of lives and property, those houses that had them, were hardly ever known to be hurt, though the neighbours who saw the dismal clouds when they bursted, with such hideous peals of thunder and streams of lightning, were sickened with horrid apprehension that all was lost. And even the house keepers themselves, when recovered from their terrors and faintings, would fly shrieking from chamber to chamber, amidst the clouds of sulphur to see who were _dead_. But behold, to the delicious wonder of themselves and congratulating friends, all were safe. But still the cry was, _certainly the house was struck! the house was surely struck! let us examine the conductors_.

The conductors were resorted to and examined, and behold! the wondrous laws imposed of G.o.d on the most powerful of his creatures! The furious lightnings had fallen on the houses in torrents of fire, threatening a wide destruction. But the iron rods, faithful to their trust, had arrested the impending bolts, and borne them in safety to the ground.

But it was found that the cataracts of lightning had proved too powerful for the rods; in some instances melting them in two at their slenderest parts, and in others entirely consuming them into smoke.

But though these GUARDIAN RODS had perished in their conflict with the rude lightnings, yet they had succeeded in parrying the dreadful stroke with perfect safety to the buildings and their terrified inhabitants; thus impressing all men with joy and thankfulness, _that G.o.d had given such complete victory over one of the most terrible of all our natural enemies_.

In short, to use the handsome language of president Adams, "nothing perhaps that ever occurred on earth, could have better tended to confer universal celebrity on man, than did these lightning rods of doctor Franklin's. The idea was certainly one of the most sublime ever suggested to the human imagination. That mortal man should thus be taught to disarm the clouds of heaven, and almost s.n.a.t.c.h from his hand '_the sceptre and the rod_!'"

The ancients would, no doubt, have enrolled among their G.o.ds, the author of so wonderful an invention. Indeed the reputation which Franklin acquired by it, not only in America, but in Europe also, far transcended all conception. His _lightning rods_, or as the French called them, his "_paratonerres_," erected their heads, not only on the temples of G.o.d and the palaces of kings, but also on the masts of ships and the habitations of ordinary citizens. The sight of them every where reminded the gazing world of the name and character of their inventor, who was thought of by the mult.i.tude as some _great magician_ dwelling in the _fairy lands_ of North America, and to whom G.o.d had given controul over the elements of nature.

And equally wonderful was the change produced by them in the state of general comfort. The millions, who had hitherto trembled at the cloud rising in the heat of summer, could now look on it with pleasing awe as it rose dark and solemn, with all its muttering thunders. And even amidst the mingled flash and crash of the earth shaking tornado, the very women and children, if they had but Franklin _paratonerres_ to their chimnies, would sit perfectly composed, silently adoring G.o.d for teaching such great salvation to men.

But the pleasure which doctor Franklin found in these plaudits of an honest world was not without an alloy. Though the end of his labours had been to do good; yet he soon discovered that there were some who sickened at his success. Alas!

"Among the sons of men, how few are known Who dare be just to merit, not their own."

Certain invidious scribblers, in London and Paris, began to decry his well-earned glory, by pretending that it was all due to the Abbe Nollet, to doctor Gilbert, or some other wonderful Frenchman or Englishman, as the real father of electricity. Franklin took no notice of all this impotent malice; nor indeed was it necessary; for soon as it dared to present its brazen front in print, it was attacked by the first-rate philosophers of Europe, who n.o.bly taking the part of Franklin, soon showed, to the general satisfaction, that whatever others may have dreamed about the late wonderful discoveries in electricity, they were all due, under G.o.d, to the great American philosopher, who for these, and many other important discoveries, had a good right to share with Newton in the following bold compliment.

"Nature and nature's works lay hid in night, G.o.d said, let Franklin be, and all was light."

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

A curious demonstration of Dr. Franklin's philosophy of lightning.

About thirty-four years after this date, when Doctor Franklin, by his opposition to Lord North's measures, had become very unpopular, George III. was persuaded to pull down the _sharp points_ of that "h.o.a.rY REBEL," and set up the _blunts_ of an impudent quack, because, forsooth, he was a _loyal subject_! Scarcely were the _sharps_ taken down from the palace, to which, during thirty four years, they had been an excellent safeguard, before a dismal cloud rose upon the city, black as midnight, and when right over the palace discharged a cataract of electric fluid, with horrid glare and thunder, stunning all ears, blinding all eyes, and suffocating every sense with the smell of sulphur. The famous _blunt conductors_ presented no point to catch the bolt, which, dashing at the stately edifice, tore away all its gable end, marring the best apartments, and killing several of the king's servants.

Shortly arrived the packet from New York, with news of a far more dreadful thunder-clap which had bursted on poor George in America--the capture of his grand Canada army! which Lord North had promised him should soon bring the rebels to their marrow bones. The next day the following pasquinade made its appearance in the newspapers:

"While you, great George, intent to hunt, Your sharp Conductors change to blunt, The nation's out of joint; Franklin a wiser course pursues, And all your thunder fearless views, By sticking to the POINT."

I cannot quit this subject without observing, that from Dr. Franklin's experiments it appears, that death by lightning, must be the easiest of all deaths.

"In September, 1752," says he, "six young Germans, apparently doubting the truth of the reported force of electricity, came to me to see," as they said, "if there was _any thing in it_. Having desired them to stand up side by side, I laid one end of my discharging rod on the head of the first; this laid his hand on the head of the second, that on the head of the third, and so on to the last, who held in his hand the chain that was attached to the lightning globe. On being asked if they were ready, they answered _yes_, and boldly desired that I would give them a _thumper_; I then gave them a shock; whereat they all dropped down together. When they got up, they declared that they had not felt any stroke; and wondered how they came to fall. Nor did any of them _hear_ the crack, or _see_ the light of it."

He tells another story equally curious. "A young woman, afflicted with symptoms of a palsy in the foot, came to receive an electrical shock.

Heedlessly stooping too near the prime conductor, she received a smart stroke in the forehead, of which she fell like one perfectly lifeless on the floor. Instantly she got up again complaining of nothing, and wondering much why she fell, for that nothing of the sort had ever happened to her before."