With his understanding of electricity he designed a metal rod that was attached to the high point of a building. A metal wire or cable ran from the rod, down the side of a building and into the ground. When lighting struck, the electricity followed the cable down into the ground and prevented damage to the building. Franklin thought of the lightening rod in 1750, but it was three more years before he perfected it. (Bell 10). Franklin believed that the lightning rod was his most important invention, and it surely saved many buildings and lives since then.

In Franklin's time, the street lamps were very inefficient and the glass globes became dark with soot from oil burned inside. They needed to be cleaned daily. Franklin recognized that the problem had to do with lack of airflow inside the globe. In his Autobiography (126-127), he describes the improvement he made...
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