Description:

1768 "Boston Chronicle" on Benjamin Franklin's Electrical Experiments 

An issue of "The Boston Chronicle" with details of Benjamin Franklin's experiments with electricity. 8pp, measuring 8.25" x 10.5", Boston, dated July 4-11, 1768. Vol. I, No. 30, p. 272-280, printed by Mein and Fleeming. With a lengthy article by J. Winthrop about Dr. Franklin's scientific experiments and the recent lightning strike that occurred at Harvard. The paper also includes a published sermon as well as news from Charleston, Williamsburg, Philadelphia, and Lancaster. Moderate toning throughout, with some soiling and foxing. Light wear and chipping at the spine, with some small holes at the binding. Overall very good.

Highlights in part:

"The indentity of lightning and electricity has been so fully established by our worthy countryman Dr. Franklin, as to admit of no reasonable doubt. Both appear to be effects of one and the same power, exerted in the same manner, and regulated by the same laws. All the effects of lightning may be imitated by electricity, and all the experiments of electricity may be performed by the matter of lightening collected from the clouds as they usually are by matter collected by glass globes or tubes. This power is a subtle and extremely active fluid, diffused thro' all bodies…This may justly be looked upon as the capital discovery of the present age. It is a discovery which has not ended in mete speculation: It has been applied by its very sagacious author to a most important purpose: - no less than that of securing our properties and lives from the fatal effects of so violent a meteor as lightening has often proved to be… "

"Harvard-Hall and the steeple of the meeting house…are furnished with such an apparatus of pointed rods. Last Saturday in the afternoon, we had the most violent thunder storm that has been known here for many years…For near and hour, the lightening flash'd and the thunder rattled with unusual violence, and with scarce any intermission. In this interval, there was a prodigious explosion upon Hollis-Hall. The four corners of the eves were all struck; the cornishes and modilions split and broke…The north-east chambers suffered most. Several panes of glass in their windows were broke; and the sashes being balanced with iron weights, the lightening burst into the flames where the weights hung, torn off the casings and the window shutters, and drove some pieces of them to the farther side of the chamber with such force as to make a considerable impression in the wall…None of the other colleges were affected with this shock. Harvard-hall, which is nearest to Hollis, and is furnished with pointed wires, escaped. The wires were seen by many to transmit a large quantity of the lightening, which has left visible marks of smut on the bricks, where the several pieces of wire were booked together…"

Benjamin Franklin first started his experiments with electricity in the 1740s and was the first to label "vitreous" and "resinous" electricity as positive and negative respectively. Franklin was also the first to put forward the principle of conservation of charge. Harvard University had previously been the victim of destructive lightning strikes in 1764, losing the entirety of its original collection in a fire after Harvard Hall was struck. After the event, Franklin advised the university to acquire a new electrical laboratory apparatus, which may be the wires referred to in the newspaper.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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