Benjamin Franklin Papers

From Benjamin Franklin to Ebenezer Kinnersley, 2 March 1752

To Ebenezer Kinnersley

Printed in Benjamin Franklin, Supplemental Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Part II. … (London, 1753), p. 102.6 (Yale University Library)

March 2, 1752

Sir,

I thank you for the experiments communicated.7 I sent immediately for your brimstone globe, in order to make the trials you desired, but found it wanted centers, which I have not time now to supply; but the first leisure I will get it fitted for use, try the experiments, and acquaint you with the result.

In the mean time I suspect, that the different attractions and repulsions you observed, proceeded rather from the greater or smaller quantities of the fire you obtained from different bodies, than from its being of a different kind, or having a different direction. In haste I am, &c.

B. Franklin

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

6Letter VIII in Supplemental Experiments, 1753, and in 1754 and 1760 editions; Letter IX in 1769 and 1774 editions.

7See above, p. 263.

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