This contains a fairly contemporary account of experiments conducted by Benj Franklin with electricity.<p>>that the phenomena of electricity could be imitated by lightning, or those of lightning by electricity, was not suspected, till our countryman Dr. Franklin made the assertion in 1750, and afterwards demonstrated its truth by undeniable experiment in 1752.<p>The next line of text is very revealing about the consensus how scientific progress had been made (from the dawn of time) up until that point (1809) too:<p>>This discovery is almost the only one in the whole science which has not been the result of accident.