BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1709-1790)

Benjamin Franklin's Experiments and Observations is the most important scientific book of eighteenth century America, and established Franklin as the first American scientist to achieve an international reputation. In this famous treatise on electricity, Franklin outlined his experiments, which proved that lightning is an electrical phenomenon, and which helped him to deduce the positive and negative nature of an electrical charge.

The text is in the form of a series of letters and papers addressed to Peter Collinson, a London merchant and naturalist. These communications were originally published in three separate pamphlets in 1751, 1753 and 1754. By 1774, five editions had appeared, and by 1783 the work had been translated into French, Italian and German.

The copy exhibited is the fourth edition, the first to contain all three parts in a single volume. Franklin's famous experiment with a kite, key and Leiden jar during an electrical storm is described on pages 111-112.

Gift of the University of Delaware Library Associates