handsomest of the company, on his electrical stool; then by slily touching her dress with his magic wand, he would so fill her lovely frame with the electric fluid, that, on the approach of any young gentleman to kiss her, a spark from her ruby lips would suddenly drive him frightened and staggering back. This was called the

MAGIC KISS.

Sometimes he would fix figures of horses cut in paper, on wires nicely poised, so as to move in circles round his prime conductor, then from his magic wand he would dash on them a stream of mimic lightning, which, potent as the whips and spurs of Newmarket, would set them all in full speed, bending and buckling with glorious emulation in the beautiful contest, to the great amusement of the spectators. The public named this the

ELECTRICAL HORSE RACE.

Sometimes he would suspend near the ceiling a large flock of finely picked cotton, or place on a distant table a paper of gunpowder; then from his wires, artfully directed, he would send a flash of lightning, instantly exploding the powder, and wrapping the cotton into a blaze.

Sometimes he would take the model of a double geared water mill, turning two pair of stones, and placing it near his prime conductor; direct a stream of electric fire against the large wheel, setting it in motion, and with it the whole machinery of his mill, to the equal surprise and pleasure of the beholders.

Sometimes he would take the figures of the sun, moon, and earth, cut in papers, and fix them on wires nicely balanced. Then, by the force of the electric fluid, he would set them a-going in most harmonious style-the earth revolving round her own axis; the moon round the earth; and both round the sun; all exactly accor ding to the course which the hand of the Creator had prescribed to these mighty orbs.

For the sake of those who have never considered this wonderful attraction of lightning to iron rods, I beg leave to relate the following very extraordinary and daring experiments of doctor Franklin.

In a large chamber, which he kept for his electrical apparatus and experiments, he suspended a number of bells, all connected by wires, and communicating,

through the gable end of the house, with the large lightning rods that descended along the chimney to the ground. His aim in this contrivance was, that he might know whenever a lightning cloud passed over his house in the night; and also what freight of electrical fluid it carried about with it. For, as it seldom passes, without paying a loving visit to his rod, so it always, told with great honesty the amount of its inflammable cargo, especially if it was ample; in which case, it was always sure to set the bells a ringing at a terrible rate.

And besides these, he had numbers of men and women of the Lilliputian stature, cut in paper, and so artfully attached to the clappers, that as soon as the bells began to ring, the men and women began to dance also, and all of them more and more merrily, according as this extraordinary kind of music played up more briskly. But though, for the amusement of his friends, Franklin would sometimes set his bells and dolls to ringing and dancing, by his electricity; yet his main object was, to invite the lightnings to be the bell ringers, and dancing masters to his puppets, that, as before observed, he might become better acquainted with the nature of lightning, and thus extend his electrical experiments and knowledge.

But, it must be owned, that when the lightnings were drawn down for this purpose among the bells and wires of his chamber, the entertainment was almost too terrible, to be agreeable to any but philosophers.

The elegant J. Dickinson, Esq. informed me, that he was at doctor Franklin's one evening, with a large party when a dreadful cloud began to rise, with distant thunder and lightning. The ladies, panic struck, as usual, were all in a prodigious bustle for their bonnets, to get home. The doctor intreated them not to be frightened; for that they were in the safest house in Philadelphia; and indeed jokingly offered to underwrite their lives at the low premium of a groat a head.

When the storm was near its worst, he invited his company up into his large chamber, A glimmering light, faintly shewed them his electrical apparatus of globes, cylinders, bells, wires, and the Lord knows what, conveying to those of the superstitious sort, a strong idea of a magic cell, or a haunted castle, at least. Presently

a dreadful clap of thunder shook the house over their heads, the chamber was filled with vivid lightnings darting like fiery serpents, crackling and hissing along the wire all around them, while the strong smell of sulphur, together with the screams of the poor ladies, and the ringing of the bells, completed the terribleness of the scene, inspiring a fearful sense of the invisible world.

"But all these things, gentlemen," he would say, smiling all the time on his crowding and gaping friends, as a parent on his children, whom he saw surprised at small matters, "all these things are mere nothings; the childish sportings of an art but yet in its cradle. ELECTRI

CITY, gentlemen, is of the terrible family of lightning; that most powerful of the works of God on this globe, and the chosen instrument of most of his operations here below. It is the electric fluid, (passing from a full cloud to an empty one,) that makes his voice, and that, as the scripture says, a terrible voice, even the THUNDER, to terrify the guilty, and to increase in the virtuous a becoming reverence of the Creator. For if the electric fluid passing from a small jar, cause so loud a crack, why should we wonder at the dreadful peals of thunder that are occasioned, when thousands and myriads of acres of clouds are throwing off their electric fluid in rivers of living fires, sufficient to blow up the globe itself, if the Almighty were but to let loose his hold on these furious agents. And this electric fluid is that same lightning which, as David says, shines out from one end of Heaven to another, and that so instantaneously, that were all the men, women, and children on earth, joining hands,to form a ring round this great globe, an electric shock given to the first person in that ring, would so suddenly reach the last, that they themselves would probably be at a loss to determine which of them received it first.

"Thus the electric fluid in the form of lightning, serves also in the hand of heaven as the red rod to restrain the vicious. Does the benevolent governor of the world seek to impress a salutary awe on the gambler, the drunkard, and such immoral characters whose lives are in constant opposition to their own and the happiness of others? He but speaks to his ready ministers the lightnings. Quickly from the sultry cloud, coming up with

muttering thunder, black and terrible as nature's apapproaching pall, the frightening flash bursts forth rending the trees and houses over their heads; killing their flocks and herds; and filling the air with smoking sulphur, a strong memento of that dismal place to which their evil practices are leading them. And when, to unthinking mortals he sees fit to read instruction on a wider scale, he only needs but beckon to the ELECTRIC FLUID. Straightway this subtle servant of his power rushes forth, clad in various forms of terror, sometimes as the roaring WHIRLWIND unroofing the palaces of kings, and desolating the forests in its course. Sometimes with dreadful stride it rushes forth upon the "howling wilderness of waves" in shape of the funnelled water spout, with hideous roar and foam whirling the frightened billows to the clouds, or dashing them back with thundering crash into their dismal gulphs; while the hearts of the seamen looking on, sink with terror at the sight, and even sharks and sea monsters fly for refuge to their oozy caverns.

"Sometimes, with the bolder aim of the earthquake, it strikes both sea and land at once, sending the frightened globe bellowing and trembling along her orbit, sadly pondering the coming day, when the measure of sin being filled up, she shall be wrapt in these same electric fires, perhaps, and lose her place for ever among the starry train."

But though the experiments above mentioned are highly curious; and also doctor Franklin's reflections on them abundantly philosophical and correct, for what I know, yet the world should learn that the gratification of public curiosity formed but a very small part of his many and grand discoveries in electricity. For soon as he had ascertained that lightning was the same thing with the electric fluid, and like it, so passionately foud of iron that it would forsake every thing else in its course, to run along upon that beloved metal, he conceived the plan of putting this discovery to those beneficent uses for which alone he thought the power of discovery was given to man, and which alone can consecrate it to the divine Giver.

The GRAND practical use," says the learned Mr. Immison, who, though a Scotch monarchist himself, had the extraordinary virtue to be a profound admirer of our

republican American, "the grand practical use which doctor Franklin made of this discovery was to secure houses and ships from being damaged by lightning; a thing of vast consequence in all parts of the world, but more especially in North America, where thundergusts are more frequent, and their effects in that dry air, more dreadful than they are ever known to be with us. This great end he accomplished by the cheap, and seemingly trifing apparatus. of a pointed metallic rod, fixed higher than any part of the building, and communicating with the ground, or rather the nearest water. This rod the lighning is sure to seize upon preferably to any other part of the building, unless it be very large; in which case, rods may be erected at each extremity; by which means this dangerous power is safely conducted to the earth, and dissipated without doing any harm to the edifice."

Had any thing more been necessary to convince the world of the value of lightning rods to buildings, it was abundantly furnished by several very terrible instances of destruction which took place about this time in several parts of America, for no other reason upon earth, as every one must admit who reads the account, but the want of lightning rods.

There, for example, was the affair of the new church, in the town of Newberry, New-England. This stately building was adorned on its north end with an elegant steeple or tower of wood, running up in a fine square, seventy feet from the ground to the bell, and thence went off in a taper spire of wood likewise seventy feet higher to the weather cock. Near the bell was fixed an iron hammer to strike the hours; and from the tail of the hammer, a wire went down through a small gimblet hole in the floor that the bell stood upon, and through a second floor in like manner; then horizontally under the plaistered ceiling of that floor to a plaistered wall, then down that wall to a clock which stood about twenty feet below the bell.

Now come, gentlemen, you who have no faith in lightning rods-you who think it blasphemy to talk of warding off GOD ALMIGHTY'S LIGHTNING!-as if it were not just as pleasing to him to see you warding off the lightning by steel rods, as warding off the ague and