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What made Ben Franklin, who had only two years of schooling, a leading scientist of the eighteenth century?
The answer is that he was curious. Ben couldn’t help wonder why things did what they did or how things worked.
Gypsum is a chalklike substance found naturally in rocks. Ben saw that spreading gypsum on a field made grass grow greener. He suggested farmers put it on their crops. That’s why he gets credit for the idea of using artificial fertilizer. He was also one of the first to figure out why so many printers, painters, and plumbers were getting sick. They were all suffering from lead poisoning.
Ben wanted to know why it took so much longer to sail from Britain to America than the other way around. So he talked to whaling captains from Nantucket. They told him about a rapid current that runs through the Atlantic. We now call it the Gulf Stream. Franklin decided to chart this current. On his many transatlantic crossings, he recorded the water temperature several times a day. He discovered that, “a stranger may know when he is in the Gulf Stream by the warmth of the water, which is much greater than that of the water on each side of it.”
Poor Richard Says: “No gains without pains.”
Ben Franklin studies electrical attraction and repulsion. ▶
◀ Franklin is credited with inventing this odometer. When attached to his carriage, it showed how many miles he’d traveled.
▲ Ben realized that warming an entire room with a fireplace was “next to impossible.” His solution: the Pennsylvania fireplace. It was an open iron box with air chambers on each side. The box fit into a fireplace and allowed heat to spread into a room more efficiently. A scientist friend of Franklin’s created a modified version called the Franklin stove. Versions of that stove can still be found in many homes today.
Ben designed this generator, which produced static electricity. It was manufactured according to his specifications. ▼
▲ After Ben saw a woven basket sprouting in a stream, he said, “This basket is alive!” He then showed others this new “tree.” Ben is credited with bringing willow trees to the North American continent.
Franklin claimed to have developed a smokeless candle. He also invented a candle made from whale oil. It burned brighter and lasted longer than ordinary candles. He also said this candle left no grease spots when it dripped. ▶
Check It Out!
Franklin proved that darker cloth absorbed more heat than lighter cloth by performing a clever experiment on a sunny winter day. How do you think he did it?
He laid squares of different colored cloth on the snow-covered ground. The darker the cloth was, the faster the snow beneath it melted.
