Illustration shows Gray's experiment celebrated around Europe as the famous "Flying Boy" demonstration: a boy was suspended on silk cords, and then charged by Gray bringing his rubbed tube (static electric generator) close to the boy's feet, but without touching. Gray showed that the boy's face and hands (conducting) still attracted objects (electrostatic). Stephen Gray (December 1666 - February 7, 1736) was an English dyer and astronomer who was the first to systematically experiment with electrical conduction. Until his work in 1729 the emphasis had been on the simple generation of static charges and investigations of the static phenomena. He also made the distinction between conduction and insulation, and discovered the action-at-a-distance phenomenon of electrostatic induction.