t smoked need not be taken down, but that only a
draught was needed to cause the smoke to rise in rarefied air. The name
of the Franklin stove added very greatly to Poor Richard's wisdom, in
making for Franklin an American reputation, which also extended to
Europe. His fame arose along original ways. Surely no one ever walked in
such ways before.

He formed a club called the Junto, which became very prosperous, and
gave strength to his local reputation. He also began a society for the
study of universal knowledge, which was called the Philosophical
Society.

A man can do the most when he is doing the most. One thing leads to
another; one thing feeds another, and one does not suffer in health or
nerves from the many things that one loves to do. It is disinclination
or friction that wears one down. People who have been very busy in what
they most loved to do have usually lived to be old, and come down to old
age in the full exercise of their powers.

While Franklin was thus seeking how he could make himself useful to
every one in many ways--for a purpose of usefulness finds many
paths--his attention was called to a very curious discovery that had
been made in the Dutch city of Leyden, in November, 1745. It was an
electrical bottle called the Leyden jar.

Nature herself had been discharging on a stupendous scale her own Leyden
jars through all generations, but no one seems to have understood these
phenomena until this memorable year brought forth the magical little
bottle which was a flashlight in the long darkness of time.

The Greeks had found that amber when rubbed would attract certain light
substances, and the ancient philosophers and doctors had discovered the
value of an electric shock from a torpedo in rheumatic complaints; that
sparks would follow the rubbing of the fur of animals in cold air had
also been noticed, but of magnetism, and of electricity, which is a
current of magnetism, the world was ignorant, except as to some of its
more common and obvious effects.

In 1600 Dr. Gilbert, of England, discovered that many other substances
besides amber could be made to develop an attractive power. He also
discovered that there are many substances that can not be electrically
excited.

In 1650 Otto von Guericke, the inventor of the air-pump, made a machine
which looked like a little grindstone--a wheel of sulphur mounted on a
turning axle, which being used with friction produced powerful
electrical sparks and