From Benjamin Franklin to Ebenezer Kinnersley, 2 March 1752
To Ebenezer Kinnersley
Printed in Benjamin Franklin, Supplemental Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Part II. … (London, 1753), p. 102.6 (Yale University Library)
March 2, 1752
Sir,
I thank you for the experiments communicated.7 I sent immediately for your brimstone globe, in order to make the trials you desired, but found it wanted centers, which I have not time now to supply; but the first leisure I will get it fitted for use, try the experiments, and acquaint you with the result.
In the mean time I suspect, that the different attractions and repulsions you observed, proceeded rather from the greater or smaller quantities of the fire you obtained from different bodies, than from its being of a different kind, or having a different direction. In haste I am, &c.
B. Franklin
6. Letter VIII in Supplemental Experiments, 1753, and in 1754 and 1760 editions; Letter IX in 1769 and 1774 editions.
7. See above, p. 263.