Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky - Benjamin West In 1751 the Royal Society published Benjamin Franklin's book, "Experiments and Observations on Electricity: Made in Philadelphia in America." Franklin described his scientific findings in a series of letters to Peter Collinson, a Quaker merchant and Society fellow in London who provided Franklin with a Leyden or Leiden jar. A Leiden jar is a primitive capacitor (also known as a condenser) that stores static electricity like a battery. In a 1752 experiment Franklin flew a specially designed kite with his son William in a th...
