may have an opportunity of observing, during the present Summer, any of the Effects of Lightning on Houses, Ships, Trees, &c., are requested to take particular Notice of its Course, and Deviation from a Straight Line, in the Walls or other Matter affected by its different Operations, or Effects on Wood, Stone, Bricks, Glass, Metals, Animal Bodies, &c., and every other Circumstance that may tend to discover the Nature and compleat the History of that terrible Meteor. Such observations being put in writing and communicated to Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia, will be very thankfully acknowledged.
In April, 1751, Mr. Kinnersley gives[1] "Notice to the Curious" of a "course of Experiments in the newly discovered Electric Fire," adding at foot "the experiments succeed best when the air is dry;" and "to be accompanied with Methodical Lectures on the Nature and Properties of that wonderful element." Three years later, he gave for the "Entertainment of the Curious" "in one of the chambers of the Academy, a course of experiments in that new Branch of Natural Philosophy called Electricity." And as the "modern Prometheus," as Kant had now called him, had drawn the fire down from Heaven, Kinnersley adds an expostulatory paragraph in his Advertisement," and as some are apt to doubt the Lawfulness of endeavoring to guard against Lightning, it will be farther shewn, that the doing it, in the Manner proposed, cannot possibly be chargeable with Presumption, nor be inconsistent with any of the Principles either of Natural or Revealed Religion.[2] This good Baptist Minister did not recognise any divorce between Religion and Science.
When Franklin was sent out in 1757 on a political errand to represent his adopted colony at the home government, his reception in England was that due to a savant rather than a politician. Local politics in their intensity found but little room for the recognition of those high scientific attainments which gave a warmth to the welcome, which otherwise would have been a cold one, to a protesting colonist.
Franklin's attendance at the meetings of the Trustees of the Academy and College was constant and regular, his first absence
