6．
阅读理解
The
son of a soap maker, Benjamin Franklin came into the world on January 17, 1706.
There was only enough money for Ben to attend school for two years. At the age
of 17, he made his way to Philadelphia. In 1741, the famous Franklin stove was
invented by him.
Before
Ben's invention of the Franklin stove, people heated their homes with a fire in
an open fireplace. Using a fireplace for heating was not good because most of
the warm air came up to the chimney (烟囱)
and was dangerous because the fire in the fireplace could set the house on fire.
Ben built a box-shaped stove for having the fire itself. After the metal warmed
up, the heat was out into the room. The Franklin stove used less wood and was a
safer way to heat buildings.
What's
more, Ben was already interested in electricity. After many years of hard work,
he finally had a plan to prove (证明) that
lightning was electricity and he was successful at last with his son's help. Although
he had many inventions in life, he never kept them himself. He wanted to share
them with people all over the world.
