which were delivered on a scientific subject in Philadelphia. The plan succeeded so much to his satisfaction, that he made a journey through most of the colonies, delivering his lectures in the capital towns, and even visited the West Indies on the same errand. In an article of the American Magazine for October, 1758, written, there is every reason to believe, by Dr. Smith, it is stated, that Mr. Kinnersley was "the chief inventor of the electrical apparatus, as well as author of a considerable part of those discoveries in electricity published by Mr. Franklin, to whom he communicated them. Indeed," the author of the paper goes on to say, "Mr. Franklin himself mentions his name with honour, though he has not been careful enough to distinguish between their particular discoveries. This, perhaps, he may have thought needless, as they were known to act in concert. But though that circumstance was known here, it was not so in the remote parts of the world to which the fame of these discoveries has extended." Coming, as this account probably does, from one so closely associated with the subject of it as the provost of the college must have been with one of the professors, it may be received as the statement of Mr. Kinnersley himself. It must, however, be confessed, that Franklin, in his memoirs, has admitted no claim of this or any other person to a participation in the discoveries which he made and announced; but merely states, that he resorted to the assistance of Mr. Kinnersley, as a neighbour and man of leisure, in the performance of his experiments. The electrical apparatus collected by Mr. Kinnersley must have been extensive; for after his death, it was purchased by the trustees of the college, according to a valuation made by impartial and well qualified judges, for the sum of five hundred pounds.[1] Mr. Kinnersley was introduced into the institution in the year 1753, as the successor of David James Dove, who was
- ↑ It is proper to state that this estimate was made during the revolution, at a period when the legal currency had very much depreciated.
