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DXXXIII: TO JOHN WINTHROP - Benjamin Franklin, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. VI Letters and Misc. Writings 1772-1775 [1904]

Edition used:

The Works of Benjamin Franklin, including the Private as well as the Official and Scientific Correspondence, together with the Unmutilated and Correct Version of the Autobiography, compiled and edited by John Bigelow (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904). The Federal Edition in 12 volumes. Vol. VI (Letters and Misc. Writings 1772-1775).

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DXXXIII

TO JOHN WINTHROP

London, 25 July, 1773.

Your remark on the passage of Castillioneus will be read at the Society at their next meeting. I thank you much for the papers and accounts of damage done by lightning, which you have favored me with. The conductors begin to be used here. Many country-seats are provided with them, some churches, the powder magazines at Purfleet, the queen’s house in the park, etc.; and M. Le Roy, of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, has lately given a memoir recommending the use of them in that kingdom, which has been long opposed and obstructed by Abbé Nollet. Of the Duke of Tuscany he says: “Ce prince, qui ne connoit pas de délassement plus agréable des soins pénibles du gouvernement, que l’étude de la physique, a ordonné, l’année dernière, qu’on établît de ces barres au-dessus de tous les magasins à poudre de ses états; on dit que la république de Venise a donné les mêmes ordres.”

B. Franklin.