1Joseph Breintnall to Peter Collinson, 7 November 1732 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : British Museum; also MS Minute Book: Library Company of Philadelphia Your Goodness in assisting Mr. Hopkinson in the Choice and Purchase of our Books, and the valuable Present you have so generously made us, demand our most grateful Acknowledgements. An Undertaking like ours, was as necessary here, as we hope it will be useful; there being no Manner of Provision made by the Government...
2From Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, 28 March 1747 (Franklin Papers)
MS not found; reprinted from extract in Benjamin Franklin, Experiments and Observations on Electricity (London, 1769), pp. 1–2. This is the earliest surviving letter in which Franklin alludes to his electrical investigations. It introduced the fourth edition of his Experiments and Observations in 1769. That edition, its predecessors and its successor, will be discussed below, under their...
3From Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, 25 May 1747 (Franklin Papers)
Copy: American Academy of Arts and Sciences In my last I informed you that In pursuing our Electrical Enquiries, we had observ’d some particular Phaenomena, which we lookt upon to be new, and of which I promised to give you some Account; tho’ I apprehended they might possibly not be new to you, as so many Hands are daily employed in Electrical Experiments on your Side the Water, some or other...
4From Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, 28 July 1747 (Franklin Papers)
Copy: American Academy of Arts and Sciences The inclosed is a Copy of my last, which went by the Governour’s Vessel: since which we have received, by Mesnard and Ouchterlony, Hill’s Theophrastus, Pemberton’s Dispensatory, Wilson’s Electricity and some other Pamphlets. The Proprietor’s handsome Present of a complete Electrical Apparatus &c. is also come to Hand in good Order, and is put up in...
5From Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, 14 August 1747 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Pierpont Morgan Library I have lately written two long Letters to you on the Subject of Electricity, one by the Governor’s Vessel, the other per Mesnard. On some further Experiments since, I have observ’d a Phenomenon or two that I cannot at present account for on the Principles laid down in those Letters, and am therefore become a little diffident of my Hypothesis, and asham’d that I...
6From Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, 18 October 1748 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Pierpont Morgan Library I have receiv’d your several Favours of April 1. June 2. June 14 and Augt. 20, and some others, with all the Books and Pamphlets you have sent at sundry Times for the Library Company: We wish it were in our Power to do you or any Friend of yours some Service in Return for your long-continued Kindness to us. I am pleas’d to hear that my Electrical Experiments were...
7From Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, 29 April 1749 (Franklin Papers)
Copy: American Academy of Arts and Sciences I now send you some Further Experiments and Observations in Electricity made in Philadelphia 1748. viz. §1. There will be the same Explosion and Shock if the electrified, Phial is held in one Hand by the Hook, and the Coating touched by the other; as when held by the Coating and touched at the Hook. §2. To take the charged Phial safely by the Hook,...
8James Logan to Peter Collinson, 28 February 1750 (Franklin Papers)
Letterbook copy: Historical Society of Pennsylvania I have Spent most of this day for the first time with thy friend Kalm accompanied with B. Franklin, and I know not what to make of him, nor of his Journey to Canada, where, after the whole last winter Spent at a Swedish Woman’s House near Newcastle, he Spent near five Months, and dined many times at the Governors at Quebec, without Seeing...
9From Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, [2 March 1750] (Franklin Papers)
MS not found; reprinted from The Gentleman’s Magazine , XX (1750), 208. I was very much pleased with some ingenious papers in the late Transactions on the subject of electricity. There is something however in the experiments of points, sending off, or drawing on, the electrical fire, which has not been fully explained, and which I intend to supply in my next. For the doctrine of points is very...
10From Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, 27 July 1750 (Franklin Papers)
Copy: American Academy of Arts and Sciences Mr. Watson I believe wrote his Observations on my last Paper in Haste; without having first well considered the Experiments related in §17 *Of the third Letter. which still appear to me decisive in the Question; Whether the Accumulation of Electrical Fire be in the Electrified Glass, or in the Non-electric Matter connected with the Glass? and to...