He thought about it for a long time; then he made a kite out of a
silk handkerchief, and fastened a sharp iron point to the upright
stick of the kite. One day, when a thunder-storm was seen coming up,
Franklin and his son went out to the fields. The kite was raised;
then Franklin tied an iron key to the lower end of the string. After
waiting some time, he saw the little hair-like threads of the string
begin to stand up like the bristles of a brush. He felt certain that
the electricity was coming down the string. He put his knuckle close
to the key, and a spark flew out. Next, he took his Leyden Jar and
collected the electricity in that. He had made two great discoveries,
for he had found out that electricity and lightning are the same thing
and he had also found how to fill his bottle directly from the clouds:
that was something that no one had ever done before.

[Illustration: FRANKLIN FLYING A KITE.]


120. Franklin invents the lightning-rod; _Doctor_ Franklin.--But
Franklin did not stop at that. He said, If I can draw down electricity
from the sky with a kite-string, I can draw it still better with a
tall, sharp-pointed iron rod. He put up such a rod on his house in
Philadelphia; it was the first lightning-rod in the world. Soon other
people began to put them up: so this was another gift of his to the
city which he loved. Every good lightning-rod which has since been
erected to protect buildings has been a copy of that invented by
Franklin.

People now began to talk, not only in this country but in Europe,
about his electrical experiments and discoveries. The oldest college