Benjamin Franklin letter to
Peter Collinson -
March 28, 1747

This Benjamin Franklin letter is part of a series of letters Franklin wrote revealing his observations and experiments about electricity. The first five letters were published by his British friend and member of the Royal Society, Peter Collinson. Those letters made Franklin a household name. You can find links to the other letters at Benjamin Franklin and Electricity letters.

Read about the history of Benjamin Franklin and Electricity here.
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Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin letter about Electricity
to Peter Collinson

Philadelphia, March 28, 1747

Sir,

Your kind present of an electric tube, with directions for using it, has put several of us on making electrical experiments, in which we have observed some particular phaenomena that we look upon to be new. I shall, therefore communicate them to you in my next, though possibly they may not be new to you, as among the numbers daily employed in those experiments on your side the water, 'tis probable some one or other has hit on the same observations. For my own part, I never was before engaged in any study that so totally engrossed my attention and my time as this has lately done; for what with making experiments when I can be alone, and repeating them to my Friends and Acquaintance, who, from the novelty of the thing, come continually in crouds to see them, I have, during some months past, had little leisure for any thing else. I am, &c.

B. Franklin

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