7 Benjamin Franklin 7phenomena. Franklin sent piecemeal reports of his
ideas and experiments to Peter Collinson, his Quaker
correspondent in London. Since he did not know what
European scientists might have already discovered,
Franklin set forth his findings timidly. In 1751 Collinson
had Franklin’s papers published in an 86 -page book titled
Experiments and Observations on Electricity. In the 18th
century the book went through five English editions, three
in French, and one each in Italian and German.
Franklin’s fame spread rapidly. The experiment he
suggested to prove the identity of lightning and electricity
was apparently first made in France before he tried the
simpler but more dangerous expedient of flying a kite in a
thunderstorm. But his other findings were original. He
created the distinction between insulators and conductors.
He invented a battery for storing electrical charges. He
coined new English words for the new science of electricity—
conductor, charge, discharge, condense, armature, electrify, and
others. He showed that electricity was a single “fluid” with
positive and negative or plus and minus charges and not,
as traditionally thought, two kinds of fluids. And he
demonstrated that the plus and minus charges, or states of
electrification of bodies, had to occur in exactly equal
amounts—a crucial scientific principle known today as
the law of conservation of charge.
Public Service in Later Life
Franklin was not only the most famous American in the
18th century but also one of the most famous figures in
the Western world of the 18th century; indeed, he is one
of the most celebrated and influential Americans who
has ever lived. Although one is apt to think of Franklin
exclusively as an inventor, as an early version of Thomas
Edison, which he was, his 18th-century fame came not