Benjamin Franklin’s Weather
by: William Waterway © 2004
“The fact that Franklin was a weather buff cannot be denied”
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) is a classic rags to riches story. At age 17 he left
his home in Boston and found his way to Philadelphia. Arriving penniless, but rich
in reading knowledge and from working as a writer and newspaper printer with
his brother in Boston, he began his rise in life. He entered a common-law
marriage in 1730 with Deborah Read, a Pennsylvania woman with whom he was
long acquainted. They had one son who was lost to smallpox as a boy, but raised
a daughter, Sally, along with Franklin's illegitimate son, William. The mother of
William, with whom Franklin had an affair, has been lost to history.
Franklin was a founding father of the United States; the first Grandmaster of the
Freemasons in North America; a family man; business man; a printer; inventor;
author; publisher; scientist; musician; diplomat; politician. Obviously, Franklin
was many things to many people.
Franklin's relationship with water may be outlined as follows:
1. His kite flying stunt to experiment with understanding how storm clouds
filled with water generated electricity. Lightning is a phenomenon that still
perplexes science.
2. His invention of the lightning rod.
3. His invention of the Armonica water music instrument.
4. His study of the Gulf Stream and his epiphany for having it printed on a
navigation chart.
5. His study of weather patterns.
6. His invention of swimming flippers.
From kite to lightning Rod
One stormy day in June of 1752, Benjamin Franklin took a walk with his 21-yearold son, William, into a nearby field to go kite flying. Trusting in his father’s
scientific know how, William probably had little idea that he was participating in a
potentially life-threatening experiment. In his time, Franklin had do much
excitement and interest in studying storms, that he can probably be dubbed as,
“the world’s first official storm chaser.”
As the story goes, Franklin attached a piece of metal wire to his homemade kite
in order to help attract electrical charges flying amongst the overhead clouds. As
the hemp string played out through Franklin's fingers, the kite twisted and
turned in the turbulent winds as it soared higher and higher. After a considerable
length of the string had played out, Franklin used a piece of silk ribbon to tie a
key to the string. Then he waiting with William to see what would happen.
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Whether it was a collection of static electricity gathered along the moist hemp
string or a “gentle” lightning strike, we may never know. Regardless, Ben
Franklin reported that he received a jolt of electricity when he reached out and
positioned his hand near the key.
“The rest,” as is often said, “is history.” And, even though Franklin and his son,
William, survived this experiment. There have been others who have tried to
duplicate this experiment and have paid dearly with their lives, or by crippling
their bodies.
Long before his famous kite-flying experiment, Franklin believed that lightning
and static electricity shared similarities. While living in Boston in 1746, Franklin
set up a laboratory to conduct his “electrical amusements.” At the time, there
were other scientists in Boston conducting electrical experiments. It was in 1746,
during his first year of conducting electrical experiments, that Franklin suffered a
not-too-amusing jolt of electricity. In a letter to a friend he expressed the
shocking experience as, “…a universal blow throughout my whole body from
head to foot, which seemed within as well as without; after which the first thing
I took notice of was a violent quick shaking of my body.” As a result of this
electrical shock, Franklin experienced numbness in his arms and the back of his
neck for a few days.
As Franklin continued to conduct his electrical experiments, he wrote down his
efforts and shared them in letters written to Peter Collinson in London. Collinson
was a friend and scientist who shared an interest in Frankin’s experiments. In
1749, Franklin sent a letter to Collinson describing the concept of a electrical
battery that could hold a charge for a brief period of time. In the same letter,
Franklin expressed doubts as to how such an invention could be of service to
humankind.
During Franklin’s experiments, he observed that when glass was rubbed, it
became “filled” with an electrical charge, making it “positively charged.” He also
observed that when other objects, such as amber, were rubbed, electricity
flowed out from them, and therefore they became “negatively charged.” This
designation by Franklin of “positive” and “negative” electrical charges established
a new base language for understanding electricity that has remains with us to
this day. Prior to Franklin’s time the words “vitreous” and “resinous” were used
to express the charges of electricity.
In his experiments, Franklin observed that when certain objects were “filled" with
static electricity, they would discharge a “spark” of electricity when placed near a
pointed metal needle. Franklin was not the first to speculate about a relationship
between lightning and the harmless sparks created by static electricity. William
Wall, a British scholar had suggested such a relationship in 1708.
However, Franklin was the first to propose an experiment of using a lightning rod
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on top of a building to capture the “fire” from the clouds. The first lightning rod
described by Franklin was an iron rod 8 to 10 feet in length that came to a
sharpened point on it uppermost tip.
Two years prior to his kite experiment, Franklin conducted experiments where he
used a large sharp iron needle to draw electricity away from a charged metal
sphere. Through his observations, Franklin extrapolated the results to his
invention of the lightning rod to protect the tops of buildings. In 1750 he wrote
to a friend, “May not the knowledge of this power of points be of use to
mankind, in preserving houses, churches, ships, etc., from the stroke of
lightning, by directing us to fix, on the highest parts of those edifices, upright
rods of iron made sharp as a needle...Would not these pointed rods probably
draw the electrical fire silently out of a cloud before it came nigh enough to
strike, and thereby secure us from that most sudden and terrible mischief?”
Even though Franklin's lightning rod proposal was first published in England by
the Royal Society of London in 1751, it was someone in France who had the
nerve and wherewithal to attempt the experiment in the spring of 1752. When
the French lightning rod experiment worked according to Franklin's theory, the
King of France sent a message to Franklin expressing his compliments. However,
due to the slow transit of mail in those days, Franklin did not receive the French
King's message until August of 1752, two months after Franklin had already
proved his theory by successfully using the dangerous kite and key rig.
In June of 1952, Franklin was in Philadelphia watching the progress of a steeple
being built on top of the Christ Church. Franklin was going to use this steeple for
his first lightning rod experiment.
From these “electrical amusements,” Franklin speculated further that the
placement of a pointed iron “rods” on top of buildings would prevent lightning
from causing fires. He figured fires could be prevented because the pointed rod
would capture the lightning's “fire sparks.” On this note, Franklin was half right.
Eventually, sometime in 1753, Franklin figured out that all lightning rods need to
be “grounded.” He accomplished this by using a metal wire or cable to draw the
charge from the lightning rod, and to harmlessly guide the electric charge down
into the ground away from the structure.
Before Franklin's invention, lightning destroyed or damaged many buildings. The
invention of the lightning rod immediately reduced the number of buildings being
struck by lightning across the colonies and Europe. The rapid and widespread
use of lightning rods quickly reduced the number of fires. This fact alone helped
governments and the public to better appreciate the practical applications of
Franklin's scientific research into electricity. Especially, when one considers the
antiquated firefighting apparatus available in the 1700s. In Franklin's time, entire
towns were known to burn down as the result of fires ignited by lightning strikes.
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Buildings, such as those with tall steeples - like churches, and tall mansions and
commercial buildings, were all susceptible to lightning strikes. Once outfitted
with lightning rods, these tall structures were less likely to be struck by lightning.
The tangible reality of Franklin's invention saving homes and buildings made him
as an international celebrity and a respected scientific genius.
The invention of the lightning rod also proved to people the connection of
lightning to storm clouds and thunder, proving that it was a force generated in
nature by the action of water molecules in the clouds. On another note, this new
understanding removed the stigma that being struck by lightning was a “sign” of
God's punishment. Franklin's experiments proved that being struck by lightning
was the unfortunate result of a random act in nature.
Franklin believed that his creation of the lightning rod was his greatest and most
useful invention for the benefit of humankind. In spite of Franklin’s apparent
habit of keeping records and sharing his experiments through his letters, it is of
historic note that he never documented his kite experiment or wrote letters
about the event. The only witness to the kite experiment was his son, William.
And, the only written account of the kite and key experiment was by another
person some 15 years after the event took place.
Franklin’s lightning rod design was of an iron rod honed to a sharp point on its
skyward tip. This design probably originated from his laboratory experiments
using an oversized needle with a sharpened point. When pointed lightning
8 rods began being installed in parts of Europe and America, King George III had
his palace in England protected with a blunt lightning rod, which he believed to
be superior to Franklin’s. Also, it was a matter of national pride, whereby the
king was trying to demonstrate England’s superiority.
Since 1752, there have been many opinions put forth as to which lightning rod
design was superior - King George’s blunt rod or Franklin’s pointed rod. In 2003,
the controversy over which lightning rod was most effective was put to the test.
When it came to capturing and safely routing a lightning strike to the ground, it
was determined that the blunt lightning rod was more effective. Even though
Franklin’s design did not win this competition, he still deserves credit for bringing
this invention to the service of humankind.
Water Encyclopedia, 5 Volume Set
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Benjamin Franklin’s Weather
Water Encyclopedia, 5 Volume Set
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Jay H. Lehr (Editor-in-Chief), Jack Keeley (Editor)
ISBN: 978-0-471-44164-9
Benjamin Franklin’s Water - Page 4 of 5
Hardcover - 4112 pages
June 2005
This article published in this Volume
Water Encyclopedia, Volume 4, Oceanography; Meteorology; Physics and
Chemistry; Water Law; and Water History, Art, and Culture
by Jay H. Lehr (Editor), Jack Keeley (Editor)
Benjamin Franklin’s Water - Page 5 of 5