Used with
permission of Maiken Naylor, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA,
http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/sel/exhibits/stamps
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), sometimes called the American Newton, was an inventor, publisher of pamphlets, maps, and broadsides, and experimenter besides being one of the country's founding fathers and first Postmaster General. We owe to Franklin the idea of positive and negative charge, and the law of conservation of charge. Famous for his daring kite experiment, in which he drew electricity from thunder clouds to a key suspended from the kite string, and thence to a Leyden jar, he also investigated the direction and velocity of the Gulf Stream.