Associated with Franklin, and equally interested and enthusiastic, if not equally successful in making discoveries, were three other men, Thomas Hopkinson, Philip Sing, and Ebenezer Kinnersley.

These men worked together constantly, although it appears to have been Franklin who made independently the important discoveries, and formulated the famous Franklinian theory.
Working steadily, and keeping constantly in touch with the progress of the European investigators, Franklin soon made some experiments which he thought demonstrated some hitherto unknown phases of electrical manifestation.

This was the effect of pointed bodies "in DRAWING OFF and THROWING OFF the electrical fire." In his description of this phenomenon, Franklin writes: "Place an iron shot of three or four inches diameter on the mouth of a clean, dry, glass bottle.

By a fine silken thread from the ceiling right over the mouth of the bottle, suspend a small cork ball, about the bigness of a marble; the thread of such a length that the cork ball may rest against the side of the shot.

Electrify the shot, and the ball will be repelled to the distance of four or five inches, more or less, according to the quantity of electricity.