shock. From this observation we should be extremely cautious, how in electrizing we draw the strokes, especially in making the experiment of Leyden, from the eyes, or even from the parts near them.

Some time since it was imagined, that deafness had been relieved by electrizing the patient, by drawing the snaps from the ears, and by making him undergo the electrical commotion in the same manner. If hereafter this remedy should be fantastically applied to the eyes in this manner, to restore dimness of sight, I should not wonder, if perfect blindness were the consequence of the experi

ment.

By a very ingenious experiment our author endeavours to evince the impossibility of success, in the experiments proposed by others of drawing forth the effluvia of non-electrics, cinnamon, for instance, and by mixing them with the electrical fluid, to convey them with that into a person electrified; and our author thinks, that, though the effluvia of cinnamon and the electrical fluid should mix within the globe, they would never come out together through the pores of the glass, and thus be conveyed to the prime conductor; for he thinks, that the electrical fluid itself cannot come through, and that the prime conductor is always supplied from the cushion, and this last from the floor. Besides, when the globe is filled with cinnamon, or other non-electrics, no electricity can be obtained from its outer surface, for the reasons before laid down. He has tried another way, which he thought more likely to obtain a mixture of the electrical and other effluvia together, if such a mixture had been possible. He placed a glass plate under his cushion, to cut off the communication between the cushion and the floor; he then brought a small chain from the cushion into a glass of oil of turpentine, and carried another chain from the oil of turpentine to the floor, taking care, that the chain from the cushion to the glass touched no part of the frame of the machine. Another chain was fixed to the prime conductor, and held in the hand of a person to be electrified. The ends of the two chains in the glass were near an inch from each other, the oil of turpentine between. Now the globe, being turned, could draw no fire from the floor through the machine, the communication that way being cut off by the thick glass plate under the cushion; it must then draw it through the chains, whose ends were dipped in the oil of turpentine. And, as the oir of turpentine, being in some degree an electric per se, would not conduct what came up from the floor, the electricity was obliged to jump from the end of one chain to the end of the other, which

he could see in large sparks; and thus it had a fair opportunity of seizing of the finest particles of the oil in its passage, and carrying them off with it; but no such effect followed, nor could he perceive the least difference in the smell of the electrical effluvia thus collected, from what it had when collected otherwise; nor does it otherwise affect the body of the person electrified. He likewise put into a phial, instead of water, a strong purging liquid, and then charged the phial, and took repeated shocks from it; in which case every particle of the electrical fluid must, before it went through his body, have first gone through the liquid, when the phial is charging, and returned through it when discharging; yet no other effect followed than if the phial had been charged with water. He has also smelt the electrical fire, when drawn through gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, wood, and the human body, and could perceive no difference; the odor being always the same, where the spark does not burn what it strikes; and therefore he imagines, that it does not take that smell from any quality of the bodies it passes through. There was no abridging this experiment, which I think very well conceived, and as well conducted, in a manner to make it intelligible; and therefore I have laid the author's words nearly before you.

As Mr. Franklin, in a letter to Mr. Collinson some time since, mentioned his intending to try the power of a very strong electrical shock upon a turkey, I desired Mr. Collinson to let Mr. Franklin know, that I should be glad to be acquainted with the result of that experiment. He accordingly has been so very obliging as to send an account of it, which is to the following purpose. He made first several experiments on fowls, and found, that two large thin glass jars gilt, holding each about six gallons, and such as I mentioned I had employed in the last paper I laid before you upon this subject, were sufficient, when fully charged, to kill common hens outright; but the turkeys, though thrown into violent convulsions, and then, lying as dead for some minutes, would recover in less than a quarter of an hour. However, having added three other such to the former two, though not fully charged, he killed a turkey of about ten pounds' weight, and believes that they would have killed a much larger. He conceited, as himself says, that the birds killed in this manner eat uncommonly tender.

In making these experiments, he found, that a man could, without great detriment, bear a much greater shock than he imagined; for he inadvertently received the stroke of two of these jars through his arms and body, when they were very near fully charged. It

seemed to him a universal blow throughout the body from head to foot, and was followed by a violent, quick trembling in the trunk, which went gradually off in a few seconds. It was some minutes before he could recollect his thoughts, so as to know what was the matter; for he did not see the flash, though his eye was on the spot of the prime conductor, from whence it struck the back of his hand; nor did he hear the crack, though the by-standers said it was a loud one; nor did he particularly feel the stroke on his hand, though he afterwards found it had raised a swelling there of the bigness of half a swan-shot or pistol-bullet. His arms and the back of his neck felt somewhat numbed the remainder of the evening, and his breast was sore for a week after, as if it had been bruised. From this experiment may be seen the danger, even under the greatest caution, to the operator, when making these experiments with large jars; for it is not to be doubted, but that several of these fully charged would as certainly, by increasing them in proportion to the size, kill a man, as they before did the turkey.

Upon the whole, Mr. Franklin appears in the work before us, to be a very able and ingenious man; that he has a head to conceive, and a hand to carry into execution, whatever he thinks may conduce to enlighten the subject-matter, of which he is treating; and, although there are in this work some few opinions, in which I cannot perfectly agree with him, I think scarce anybody is better acquainted with the subject of electricity than himself.

No. II.

LETTER FROM THE ABBÉ NOLLET TO BENJAMIN

FRANKLIN.*

A Monsieur Benjamin Franklin, Auteur du Livre intitulé " Expériences et Observations sur l'Electricité, faites à Philadelphie en Amérique."

MONSIEUR,

Lorsqu'on fit paroître en Français vos Lettres sur l'Electricité, je m'empressai de les lire, et j'y trouvai, comme l'annoncent vos Editeurs, des faits nouveaux et intéressants, des expériences bien imaginées et conduites avec intelligence, des vues fort ingénieuses et des conjectures plausibles. Si ce témoignage, qui est très-sincère de ma part, étoit capable de vous flatter, je vous le rends avec d'autant plus d'empressement et de plaisir, que des gens peu instruits de mes vrais sentiments, m'ont accusé très-mal-à-propos de penser d'une autre façon. Cela vient apparemment de ce que j'ai mis quelques restrictions à mes applaudissements, et de ce qu'en parlant de vos opinions, j'en ai cité quelques-unes comme me paroissant incompatibles avec certaines vérités bien établies, et d'autres comme des nouveautés dont j'aurois voulu trouver les preuves plus solides. Mais cette liberté que j'ai osé prendre, et que je crois bien permise en pareille matière, doit-elle m'attirer des reproches que je n'ai pas mérités? Voudroit-on, en dissimulant les bornes que je mets à ma critique, laisser à penser que je désapprouve tout ce qui est dans votre ouvrage, afin qu'on me croie un homme peu au fait de la matière, ou mal intentionné? Ou bien s'offenseroit-on de ce que je ne souscris pas pleinement aux éloges illimités qu'on lui donne, comme si quelques restrictions de ma part portoient préjudice au discernement de ceux qui n'ont point usé de la même réserve? C'est à vous-même, Monsieur, qui êtes à mille cinq cent lieues de ces tracasseries, et aux personnes judicieuses qui se tiennent à l'écart pour juger sans prévention et sans partialité, que je m'adresse pour dire tout naturellement ce que je pense sur des questions auxquelles j'ai droit de m'interesser plus

* This letter is the first of a series written by the Abbé Nollet to Dr. Franklin, and serves to explain the grounds of the controversy, which the Abbé set on foot in regard to the Franklinian theory of electricity. EDITOR.

particulièrement que bien d'autres, par le goût que j'y ai pris, et par l'application que j'y donne depuis nombre d'années; persuadé que vous prendrez la peine de peser mes raisons, et que vous ne chercherez pas à m'imputer d'autre motif que celui d'éclaircir la

vérité.

Vous serez peut-être surpris d'entendre ainsi parler un homme qu'on ne vous a point nommé parmi les physiciens électrisants de l'Europe; si vous cherchez à pénétrer la cause de cette omission qui n'est pas fort importante, vous pouvez croire, si vous le voulez, que l'Auteur qui a pris soin de vous en envoyer la liste, n'ayant entrepris qu'une Historie abrégée de l'Electricité, s'est contenté de citer les premiers Maîtres de l'Art, et qu'il m'a réservé pour le supplement, s'il en donne un quelque jour. Quoi qu'il en soit, puisque je vous suis tout-à-fait inconnu, je suis comme forcé de m'annoncer moi-même, et de vous dire, que ma place, si j'en dois avoir une, est entre M. Dufay, avec qui j'ai eu l'honneur de travailler pendant plusieurs années, et les physiciens d'Allemagne, qui n'ont commencé à faire parler d'eux que vers l'année 1742, et même encore plus tard en France, à cause du peu de correspondance qu'ils y avoient.

Après avoir médité pendant dix ans sur les expériences dont j'avois été témoin, et sur celles que j'avois continué de faire depuis la mort de M. Dufay, qui arriva en 1739, éclairé de nouveau par le grand nombre et par la grandeur des faits que nous procura l'usage des globes de verre substitués aux tubes, je commençai en 1745 à donner des mémoires sur l'électricité, et à soumettre au jugement des savants les pensées que je n'avois encore confiées que de vive voix aux amateurs qui avoient fréquenté mon école; dans l'espace de quatre ans, j'en lus six, qui se trouvent dans les volumes de l'Académie des Sciences, et dont j'ai donné les extraits dans deux ouvrages imprimés l'un en 1746, avec le titre d'Essai sur l Electricité des Corps, et l'autre en 1748, sous celui de Recherches sur les Causes particulières des Phénomènes électriques. Je prends la liberté de vous envoyer l'un et l'autre, premièrement comme un hommage que je rends á votre mérite, et en second lieu pour abréger les citations que j'aurai à vous faire de mes expériences, ou des conséquences que j'en ai déduites, n'ayant plus qu'à vous indiquer les endroits où vous pourrez les trouver.

Si vous vous donnez la peine de lire ces deux petits volumes avec un peu d'attention, vous vous appercevrez bientôt, qu'en travaillant sur l'électricité, je me suis bien moins appliqué à produire des effets surprenants et capables de faire spectacle, qu'à étudier les circon