Supplemental Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Part II, [March 1753]
Supplemental Experiments and Observations
on Electricity, Part II
Supplemental Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Part II. Made at Philadelphia in America, by Benjamin Franklin, Esq; and Communicated in several Letters to P. Collinson, Esq; of London, F.R.S. London: Printed and sold by E. Cave, at St. John’s Gate. 1753. (Yale University Library)
Franklin continued to send Peter Collinson reports of his electrical experiments through 1750–52, and Collinson gave them to Edward Cave to publish.9 On March 7, 1753, Collinson apologized for the printer’s slowness (see above, p. 455), but the pamphlet finally appeared later that month.1 It sold for sixpence and contained only twenty-four pages—a title page with verso blank and twenty-two pages of text numbered consecutively with those of the Experiments and Observations of 1751. The contents, which have appeared in the present volume under their proper dates, are recapitulated here:
Letter V. Franklin to Collinson, July 27, 1750.2 pp. 89–92.
[Above, pp. 7–8]
Letter VI. Franklin to Colden, [October 31] 1751. pp. 93–4.
[Above, pp. 201–2]
Queries and Answers, referr’d to in the foregoing Letter. pp. 95–8.
[Above, pp. 202–5]
An Experiment towards discovering more of the Qualities of the Electric Fluid.3 p. 98.
[Above, p. 377]
Letter VII. Kinnersley to Franklin, Feb. 3, 1752. pp. 99–101.
[Above, pp. 263–5]
Letter VIII. Franklin to Kinnersley, March 2, 1752. p. 102.
[Above, p. 269]
Letter IX. Franklin to Kinnersley, March 16, 1752. pp. 103–6.
[Above, pp. 275–6]
Letter X. Franklin [to the Public], Oct. 19, 1752. pp. 106–8.
[Above, pp. 366–7]
Letter XI. Franklin [to Collinson], [October 1752]. pp. 108–9.
[Above, pp. 376–7]
Additional Errata in Part I. to the printed Electrical Papers.
p. [110.]4
9. See above, III, 117.
1. Gent. Mag., XXIII (1753), 151.
2. Printed with this letter is that of June 29, 1751. See above, pp. 143–5.
3. BF also included this experiment in his letter to Collinson [October 1752], printed as Letter XI (see above, pp. 376–7), hence it appears twice in Supplemental Experiments, at p. 98 and at pp. 108–9.
4. These emendations supplement the “Corrections and Additions” in Exper. and Obser., 1751 edit., pp. 85–6.