ience in the knowledge and application of electricity has
continued to reflect upon mankind his genius for the useful.

The ancients had no scientific acquaintance with electricity. The
early Greeks, so far as known, observed but a single phenomenon in
connection with it--the electrification of amber by friction.
Aristotle and Pliny note the production of electricity by certain
fishes, especially the torpedo, a ray possessing an electrical
apparatus with which it kills or stuns its prey and defends itself
against its enemies. Not before the sixteenth century of the
Christian era was there any recorded scientific study of electrical
phenomena. The early predecessors of Franklin, such as Gilbert,
Boyle, and others, are considered to have created the science of
electricity and magnetism. The invention of the Leyden jar or vial,
in 1745, said to have been "hit upon by at least three persons
working independently," was a very important advance.

The work of Franklin, following so soon upon the then latest step of
progress in Europe, is best made known to the world through his own
writings, particularly in the letters, selected by Bigelow, which
appear in the present account of the philosopher's experiments.

While on a visit to Boston in 1746 Franklin witnessed some electrical
experiments performed by a Mr. Spence, recently arrived from Scotland.
Shortly after his return to Philadelphia the Library Company received
from Mr. Collinson, of London, and a member of the Royal Society, a
glass tube, with instructions for making experiments with it. With this
tube Franklin began a course of experiments which resulted in
discoveries which, humanly speaking, seem to be exerting a larger
material influence upon the industries of the world than any other
discovery of the human intellect. Dr. Stuber, then a resident of
Philadelphia, and author of the first continuation of Franklin's _Life_,
who seems to have enjoyed peculiar opportunities of obtaining full and
authentic information upon the subject, gives us the following account
of the observations which this letter brought for the first time to the
notice of the world through Mr. Collinson.

"His observations," says Dr. Stuber, "he communicated, in a series of
letters, to his friend Collinson, the first of which is dated March 28,
1747. In these he shows the power of points in drawing and throwing off
the ele