The Boy Electrician

by Alfred Powell Morgan

He secured two light strips of cedar wood, placed cross-wise and covered with a silk handkerchief for a kite. To the top of the upright stick of the kite was fastened a sharp wire about a foot long. The twine was of the usual kind, but was provided with a short piece of silk ribbon and a key. The purpose of the ribbon was possible protection against the lightning running through his body, silk being a "non-conductor," as will be explained a little farther on. The key was secured to the junction of the silk ribbon and the twine, to serve as a convenient conductor from which to draw the sparks—if they came. He did not have to wait long for a thunderstorm, and as he saw it gathering he went out with his son, then a young man twenty-two years of age. The great clouds rolled up from the horizon, and the gusts of wind grew fitful and strong. The kite felt a swishing blast and began to rise steadily, swooping this way and that as the breeze caught it. The thunder muttered nearer and nearer and the rain began to patter on the grass as the kite flew higher.

The rain soon began to fall heavily, compelling Franklin and his son to take refuge under a near-by shed. The heavy kite, wet with water, was sailing sluggishly when suddenly a huge low-lying black cloud traveling overhead shot forth a forked flame and the flash of thunder shook the very earth. The kite moved upward, soaring straight into the black mass, from which the flashes began to come rapidly.

Franklin watched the silk ribbon and the key. There was not a sign. Had he failed? Suddenly the loose fibers of the twine erected themselves. The moment had come. Without a tremor he advanced his knuckle to the key. And between his knuckle and the key passed a spark! then another and another. They were the same kind of little sparks that he had made hundreds of times with a glass tube.

And then as the storm abated and the clouds swept off towards the mountains and the kite flew lazily in the blue, the face of Franklin gleamed in the glad sunshine. The great discovery was complete, his name immortal.

The cause of lightning is the accumulation of the electric charges in the clouds, the electricity residing on the surface of the particles of water in the cloud. These charges grow stronger as the particles of water join together and become larger. As the countless multitude of drops grows larger and larger the "potential" is increased, and the cloud soon becomes heavily charged.

Through the effects of a phenomenon called induction, and which we have already stumbled against in the experiment with the tacks and the magnetic chain, the force exerted by the charge grows stronger because of a charge of the opposite kind on a neighboring cloud or some object on the earth beneath. These charges continually strive to burst across the intervening air.

As soon as the charge grows strong enough a vivid flash of lightning, which may be from one to ten miles long, takes place. The heated air in the path of the lightning expands with great force; but immediately other air rushes in to fill the partial vacuum, thus producing the terrifying sounds called thunder.

In the eighteenth century, electricity was believed to be a sort of fiery atmospheric discharge, as has been said. Later it was discovered that it seemed to flow like water through certain mediums, and so was thought to be a fluid. Modern scientists believe it to be simply a vibratory motion, either between adjacent particles or in the ether surrounding those particles.

It was early discovered that electricity would travel through some mediums but not through others. These were termed respectively "conductors" and "non-conductors" or insulators. Metals such as silver, copper, gold, and other substances like charcoal, water, etc., are good conductors. Glass, silk, wool, oils, wax, etc., are non-conductors or insulators, while many other substances, like wood, marble, paper, cotton, etc., are partial conductors.

There seems to be two kinds of electricity, one called "static" and the other "current" electricity. The former is usually produced by friction while the latter is generated by batteries or dynamos.