File:Benjamin Franklin Flying a kite in a lightning storm engraving.jpg

Summary
The most notable kite with a key attached was flown by Benjamin Franklin in a thunderstorm. Do NOT do this at home. Benjamin Franklin used different types of string so the electricity would not come down to his hand. What we now know about thunderstorms is that one can be struck by lightning, which can debilitate or kill. Science experiments like this are done by people wearing insulated (against electricity) or rubber footwear, head gear, and gloves. Date: 1881 Author:Natural Philosophy for Common and High Schools by Le Roy C. Cooley. - Page 159 (Figure 82)

Text scanned by uploader reads: Who first took lightning from the clouds?—Dr. Franklin first drew electricity from the clouds in such a way as to be able to examine it, and prove that lightning is nothing but electricity. How did he do it?—This discovery of the nature of lightning was one of the most important ever made in science, and yet, Dr. Franklin made it simply by flying a kite in a thunder-shower (Fig. 82). He made his kite of silk instead of paper, and sent it up with a hempen cord ending in a piece of silk cord, by which the kite was held. It is said that he fastened a doorkey to the lower end of the hempen cord, and that after his kite had been for some time sailing among the clouds he touched the key with his knuckle and drew a spark of electricity from it. The electricity in the cloud entered the kite, and came down the hempen string to the key, but could not go any farther because the silk cord was not a conductor. When the doctor presented his hand the electricity in the key leaped into his knuckle.