Inventors

by Philip Gengembre Hubert

The Franklin Penny.

As might have been expected, there was no lack of opposition to the new doctrine of lightning-rods. Every new movement of radical character is denounced more or less fiercely. The last years of Newton's life were perplexed by the charge that his theory of gravitation tended to "materialize" religion. Insuring houses against fire was opposed as an interference with the prerogatives of deity. The establishment of the Royal Society was opposed upon the ground that the study of natural philosophy, grounded, as it was, upon experimental evidence, tended to weaken the force of evidence not so founded; and this objection was deemed of sufficient weight to call for serious answer. Franklin's daring proposal to neutralize the "artillery of heaven," of course could not escape, and the impiety of lightning-rods was widely discussed, often with acrimony. Mr. Kinnersley, one of Franklin's friends, who lectured for several years upon electricity, when advertising the outline of his subject always announced his intention to show that the erection of lightning-rods was "not chargeable with presumption nor inconsistent with any of the principles either of natural or revealed religion." Quincy relates in his "History of Harvard College," that in November, 1755, a shock of earthquake having been felt in New England, a Boston clergyman preached a sermon on the subject, in which he contended that the lightning-rods, by accumulating the electricity in the earth, had caused the earthquake. Professor Winthrop, of Harvard, thought it worth while to defend Franklin. "In 1770," Mr. Quincy adds, "another Boston clergyman opposed the use of the rods on the ground that, as the lightning was one of the means of punishing the sins of mankind, and of warning them from the commission of sin, it was impious to prevent its full execution." And to this attack also Professor Winthrop replied. Apparently Franklin himself thought it wise to conciliate the opposition of some so-called religious people of the day, for an account of the lightning-rod which appears in Poor Richard's Almanac for 1753, written probably by Franklin, begins as follows: "It has pleased God in his Goodness to Mankind, at length to discover to them the means of securing their Habitations and other Buildings from Mischief by Thunder and Lightning."

Franklin bore his honors with the most remarkable modesty. It was in June that he flew his first kite, but not until October that he sent to Mr. Collinson an account of the experiment, and even then he described the manner of making and flying the kite and omitted all reference to his own success with it. The identity of lightning with electricity having been established by M. Dalibard, he deemed it unnecessary to forward the account of an experiment which, however brilliant, he thought superfluous. Accordingly, we have no narrative by Franklin of the flying of the kite. We owe our knowledge of what occurred on that memorable afternoon to persons who heard Franklin tell the story. Franklin prefaces his description of his kite with these words: "As frequent mention is made in public papers from Europe of the success of the Philadelphia experiment for drawing the electric fire from clouds by means of pointed rods of iron erected on high buildings, it may be agreeable to the curious to be informed that the same experiment has succeeded in Philadelphia, though made in a different and more easy manner, which is as follows." And then we have the description of the kite, the letter ending without reference to what he himself had done with it.

Yet he was far from hiding the pleasure his fame brought him. "The Tatler," he wrote, in 1753, to a friend, "tells us of a girl who was observed to grow suddenly proud, and none could guess the reason, till it came to be known that she had got on a pair of new silk garters. Lest you should be puzzled to guess the cause, when you observe anything of the kind in me, I think I will not hide my new garters under my petticoats, but take the freedom to show them to you in a paragraph of our friend Collinson's last letter, viz.—But I ought to mortify, and not indulge, this vanity; I will not transcribe the paragraph—yet I cannot forbear." Then he quotes the paragraph, which mentions the honors done him by the King of France and the Royal Society.

For twenty years Franklin continued to work at electricity, devoting most of his leisure to his beloved study. The great practical value of the lightning-rod, at one time in the early part of this century somewhat exaggerated, as a perfect protection against harm by lightning, just as electricity was at one time heralded as a panacea for all bodily ailments, has of late years been questioned, but the consensus of scientific opinion still attributes much merit to the device, and the extent of Franklin's services to science in the matter cannot be called into doubt. Others have claimed his discoveries. The Abbé Nolet, of France, has been credited as being the first to note the similarity between electricity and lightning; and M. Romas, of Nerac, France, is said to have used a kite with a copper wire wound around the string, to attract electricity from clouds, some time before Franklin made his experiment. But posterity has ignored these claimants, and Franklin had the happiness of escaping bitter contentions with rivals. In fact, there could hardly have been a quarrel with a man who claimed nothing, who mentioned with honor everybody's achievements but his own, and who recorded his most brilliant observations in the plural, as though he were but one of a band of investigating Philadelphians.

Passing now, to Franklin's connection with the use of oil to still dangerous waves, I had occasion recently to note that Lieutenant W.H. Beehler, of the United States Navy, in writing upon the matter, quotes Franklin's explanation of why oil works so beneficently as the accepted theory. Franklin was greatly interested, when at sea, in studying the matter. Any phenomenon that puzzled him was fit subject for investigation. Let us see how he went about the inquiry. "In 1757," he wrote, "being at sea in a fleet of ninety-six sail bound against Louisburg, I observed the wakes of two of the ships to be remarkably smooth, while all the others were ruffled by the wind which blew fresh. Being puzzled with the differing appearance, I at last pointed it out to our captain and asked him the meaning of it. 'The cooks,' says he, 'have, I suppose, been just emptying their greasy water through the scuppers, which has greased the sides of those ships a little;' and this answer he gave me with an air of some little contempt, as to a person ignorant of what everybody else knew. In my own mind I at first slighted his solution, though I was not able to think of another; but recollecting what I had formerly read in Pliny, I resolved to make some experiment of the effect of oil on water, when I should have opportunity. Afterwards, being again at sea in 1762, I first observed the wonderful quietness of oil on agitated water, in the swinging glass lamp I made to hang up in the cabin, as described in my printed papers. This I was continually looking at and considering, as an appearance to me inexplicable. An old sea captain, then a passenger with me, thought little of it, supposing it an effect of the same kind with that of oil put on water to smooth it, which he said was a practice of the Bermudians when they would strike fish, which they could not see if the surface of the water was ruffled by the wind. The same gentleman told me he had heard it was a practice with the fishermen of Lisbon, when about to return into the river (if they saw before them too great a surf upon the bar, which they apprehended might fill their boats in passing) to empty a bottle or two of oil into the sea, which would suppress the breakers, and allow them to pass safely. A confirmation of this I have not since had an opportunity of obtaining; but discoursing of it with another person, who had often been in the Mediterranean, I was informed that the divers there, who, when under water in their business, need light, which the curling of the surface interrupts by the refractions of so many little waves, let a small quantity of oil now and then out of their mouths, which rising to the surface smooths it, and permits the light to come down to them. All these informations I at times resolved in my mind, and wondered to find no mention of them in our books of experimental philosophy.

"At length being at Clapham where there is, on the common, a large pond, which I observed one day to be very rough with the wind, I fetched out a cruet of oil and dropped a little of it on the water. I saw it spread itself with surprising swiftness upon the surface; but the effect of smoothing the waves was not produced; for I had applied it first on the leeward side of the pond, where the waves were largest, and the wind drove my oil back upon the shore. I then went to the windward side, where they began to form; and there the oil, though not more than a teaspoonful, produced an instant calm over a space several yards square, which spread amazingly, and extended itself gradually, till it reached the lee side, making all that quarter of the pond, perhaps half an acre, as smooth as a looking glass.

"A gentleman from Rhode Island told me it had been remarked that the harbor of Newport was ever smooth while any whaling vessels were in it; which, probably arose from hence, that the blubber, which they sometimes bring loose in the hold, or the leakage of their barrels, might, afford some oil to mix with that water, which, from time to time, they pump out to keep their vessel free, and that some oil might spread over the surface of the water in the harbor and prevent the forming of any waves."