experiments followed which are usually
performed with an electrifying machine. No
discovery ever produced a more intense sensation;
the striking experiments, diversified in form
were everywhere repeated; in one instance
only—that of Professor Richman of St. Petersburg
—with a fatal result; and even in that
catastrophe the kite was not the instrument
employed. If any of our young experimental
readers should be ambitious of repeating the
feat of Franklin, and bringing the lightning
from the clouds through the medium of a kite
it may be effected with comparative safety by
using wire instead of a hempen string. The
wire ought to be coiled on a strong rod or bar
of solid glass, taking special care to hold the
glass only in the hand. For security, a key
should be suspended by a second wire from
that which is coiled round the glass: which
second wire may be brought into contact with a
large silver coin, or plate of metal, placed on the
ground; and if the key be lifted a little from
the coin or plate, the electric stream will be
seen to issue from the key to the point of
attraction. Although no fatality is, we believe,
recorded as having attended 'the experiment
with a kite, great caution ought to be observed.
If a sensation resembling that of a cobweb
spreading over the face be felt, it will be
prudent at once to throw down the glass bar and
leave the kite to its fate.

Franklin, by the success of this simple
expedient, ranks not only among the benefactors
to science, but also high among the benefactors
to mankind. Fuller, in his History of the
Church, published in 1655, informs us "that
scarcely a great abbey exists which once at
least was not burned down by lightning from
heaven;" and even in later days many church
spires have suffered from the same cause. The
effects of lightning even on British ships of war,
particularly in tropical climates, have been
disastrous, as we have described in former pages.
The experiment of the kite suggested the lightning-
conductor to Franklin. Philosophers are
more attracted by the flights of the aëronaut, and,
deserting the kite, deem it only an amusement
for boys. It must be conceded that the invention
of that simple plaything has proved of
incomparably more value to society than that of the
scientific balloon. Darwin, so far back as 1781,
prophesied truly the triumph of steam on land
and water:

Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam, afar,
Drag the slow barge and drive the rapid car;

but his predictions in the succeeding couplets
respecting its influence on aërial navigation have
signally failed:

Or on wide waving wings expanded bear
The flying chariot through the streams of air;
Fair crews triumphant leaning from above,
Shall wave their fluttering kerchiefs as they move;
Or warrior bands alarm the gaping crowd,
And armies shrink beneath the shadowy cloud.

The kite was also applied by Franklin to a
singular use in bathing. Previous to entering
the water, he would allow it to ascend, and then,
lying on his back, suffer himself to be drawn
across the stream by its flight. Bishop Wilkins,
in his Mathematical Magic, proposed a
carriage with sails, like a windmill, to be driven
by the air. In an essay under the title Dædalus,
or Mechanical Motions, he described—and the
description is illustrated by a drawing—"a sailing
chariot that may, without horses, be driven
on the land by the wind as ships are on the
sea;" and he added, "that such chariots are
commonly used in the plains of China, is
frequently affirmed by divers credible authors."
Attempts of a similar nature would appear to
have been early made in Holland, where, since
its introduction into Europe, the kite has been
applied in aid of rapid transit on the ice of their
frozen canals. In the present century, an
enterprising and adventurous pedagogue availed
himself of the artificial kite as a motive power
in England. He started from Bristol with a
fair wind, in. a light carriage drawn along the
high road by kites, and, it was said, actually
reached London. The kite has also been used
in England as a means of spreading a net over
birds.

Seamen have been at all times remarkable for
fertility of invention and the ingenuity of their
appliances. During one of our expeditions to
Egypt, in the early part of the present century,
a party of sailors belonging to a British ship of
war turned a paper kite to amusing account.
Among the wrecks of antiquity which surround
Alexandria, no object is so striking amid the
desolation around, as that popularly known as
Pompey's Pillar. This monument of ancient
art, standing in the desert, is acknowledged to
be the finest column that Corinthian taste has
produced: while the name expresses the
popular belief that it was erected by Cæsar either
to celebrate his triumph over Pompey, or to
commemorate the fame and fate of his rival.
It is composed of three pieces of red granite,
one of which forms the pedestal, the centre one
the shaft (of one entire mass, measuring sixty-
three feet in height, with a diameter of eight
feet), and the third the capital, presenting, of
course, a more extended area. Our countrymen,
having in an exploratory excursion through the
country admired its elevation—ninety-three feet
—determined to reach the summit; and for this
purpose they extemporised a paper kite, which
they flew over the column. To the kite was
attached a string, by means of which they
succeeded in drawing a rope over the pillar; and
thus the whole boat's crew contrived to haul
themselves one after the other, hand over hand,
in nautical style, to the top, and to stand secure
on the capital of the Alexandrian Column, where
they announced their success with cheers. From
their lofty height they beheld the then recent
scenes of French reverses and British triumphs,
while the degenerate descendants of the
Ptolemys, and the wandering Arabs of the desert
below, gazed with amazement at the exploit,
Before their descent, which they effected with