241From 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...
242From Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, 25 October 1755 (Franklin Papers)
Draft: American Philosophical Society The above is a Copy of my last. I hope you have receiv’d a Bill for £75 Sterling. I sent you the 1st per in mine of the 27th of August last, when I wrote for one of Mr. Smeaton’s New Air Pumps for the Academy. I now send another Bill for £30 Sterling on the same Account together with a List of some Philosophical Implements that will be wanted towards our...
243From Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, 9 May 1753 (Franklin Papers)
Copy: New York Public Library; also copies: Public Record Office, American Philosophical Society, and (part only) British Museum Although this is one of Franklin’s most important letters, there has been difficulty about both its date and its recipient. Moreover, it has never been printed accurately, nor can it be here, for no Franklin autograph has been found. The two fullest surviving...
244From Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, 1753 (Franklin Papers)
Transcript: Historical Society of Pennsylvania With regard to the Germans, I think Methods of great tenderness should be used, and nothing that looks like a hardship be imposed. Their fondness for their own Language and Manners is natural: It is not a Crime. When People are induced to settle a new Country by a promise of Privileges, that Promise should be bonâ fide performed, and the...
245From Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, 7 December 1762 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Pierpont Morgan Library I arrived here the first of last Month, and had the great Happiness, after so long Absence, to find my little Family well, and my Friends as cordial and more numerous than ever. Mr. Bartram I suppose writes to you concerning the great Bones at the Ohio. I have delivered to him and to the Library Company what you sent by me. There is great Complaint here of the...
246From Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, [October 1752] (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Benjamin Franklin, Supplemental Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Part II . … (London, 1753), pp. 108–[9]. (Yale University Library) As you tell me our friend Cave is about to add some later experiments to my pamphlet, with the Errata , I send a coppy of a letter from Dr. Colden which may help to fill a few pages; also my kite experiment in the Pennsylvania Gazette: to...
247From Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, 13 July 1767 (Franklin Papers)
ADS and AD enclosure: British Museum I have heard of an Account you lately received from Russia of some Discovery of an ancient Sepulchre in the Frontiers of that Country. I wish I could see that Account. In the mean time I send you a Passage I have met with in Herodotus, that most ancient Historian, concerning the Sepulchres of the Sythian Kings, which may possibly throw some Light on this...
248From Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, 25 August 1755 (Franklin Papers)
MS not found; reprinted from Benjamin Franklin, Experiments and Observations on Electricity (London, 1769), pp. 356–9. As you have my former papers on Whirlwinds, &c. I now send you an account of one which I had lately an opportunity of seeing and examining myself. Being in Maryland, riding with Col. Tasker, and some other gentlemen to his country-seat, where I and my son were entertained by...
249From 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...
250From Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, September 1753 (Franklin Papers)
Copy: Massachusetts Historical Society In my former Paper on this Subject, wrote first in 1747, enlarged and sent to England in 1749, I considered the Sea as the grand source of Lightning, imagining its luminous Appearance to be owing to Electric Fire, produced by Friction between the Particles of Water and those of Salt. Living far from the Sea I had then no opportunity of making Experiments...