[Royal Society]: [Franklin, Benjamin]:

$4,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

[PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, GIVING SOME ACCOUNT OF THE PRESENT UNDERTAKINGS, STUDIES, AND LABOURS OF THE INGENIOUS, IN MANY CONSIDERABLE PARTS OF THE WORLD. VOL. XLVII. FOR THE YEARS 1751 AND ... Volume 47 of the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions..., featuring some of the first published accounts of Benjamin Franklin's experiments with electricity, in particular, "A Letter of Benjamin Franklin, Esq; to Mr. Peter Collinson, F.R.S. concerning an electrical Kite" (pp.565-67), Franklin's account of his most famous experiment. On June 10, 1752, "as dark clouds came up...Franklin ran the string from the kite to a Leyden jar, insulating himself by holding a silk ribbon to the string. When he observed the fibers on the hemp string stand out, he realized the experiment [to conduct electricity] had succeeded. It must have been one of the most satisfying moments of his life...Franklin became the most famous natural philosopher since Isaac Newton....In 1756 Immanuel Kant dubbed Franklin the 'Prometheus of modern time'" (ANB).This volume also contains "A Letter from Mr. Franklin to Mr. Peter Collinson, F.R.S. concerning the Effects of Lightning" (pp.289-91), in which Franklin discusses various properties of lightning, in particular how it affects navigational compasses. His correspondent, botanist Peter Collinson, collaborated with a wide circle of natural historians, including Carl Linnaeus, Gronovius, and John Fothergill; he was also a patron of Mark Catesby.Earlier in the vol

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