was laid by the experience of the Indians and many of their secrets the philosophers hoped to gather from them for the common benefit of man.

The hopes of many protectionists of a later time who have labored strenuously to encourage the development of native industries were anticipated by the Philosophical Society. Its members early had a care for the silkworm and the mulberry tree. Franklin sounded the note in a letter written in 1770, and the venerable Peter S. Duponceau, long the president of the society, a distinguished lawyer and philologist who in his youth came hither from France to serve Baron von Steuben as his private secretary during the Revolutionary war, carried on extensive experiments in silkworm culture at his own expense. The Pennsylvania Assembly was asked to pass a bill establishing a public filature in Philadelphia. Eggs were to be distributed and bounties paid for a term of years to the most successful producers of the cocoon.

While the philosophers were not able to convince the legislature that public duty lay in this direction, a private association to encourage silkworm propagation was afterward organized under the auspices of the Society and it received £1,000 from the Pennsylvania Assembly in furtherance of its ends.

The wine grape also greatly appealed to the interest of the Society, which made a collection of receipts for the manufacture of wine forwarded to it by farmers and other colonists who had had experience of the vine in America. The uncleared land was well covered with wild vines, and it was assumed that by a little experimentation the colonies could be made to yield wine fruit abundantly.

VOL. LX.--28.

In 1791 Dr. Rush thought he saw in the maple the future source of the world's sugar supply. This benevolent man hoped that the growth of the tree might be generally extended. "I cannot help contemplating a sugar maple tree with a species of affection and even veneration," said the great advocate of emancipation, "for I have persuaded myself to behold in it the happy means of rendering the commerce and slavery of our African brethren in the sugar islands as unnecessary as it has always been inhuman and unjust."

Accounts of many interesting things crowd the early records of the Society. Franklin himself while coming home from France on his last tedious voyage diverted himself in calm weather by writing his famous letter on the causes and cure of smoky chimneys,' which he tells us are chimneys that instead of carrying up all the smoke discharge a part of it into the room, offending the eyes and damaging the furniture.' He also describes a new stove for burning pit coal, while Thomas Jefferson's interest in husbandry is evidenced by his

model of a hand threshing machine,' invented by a Virginian, and his communication in regard to a new plowshare.

Natural history had many enthusiastic students. America was a great boneyard which before the fertilizer companies despatched their agents everywhere afforded much that was of curious concern to naturalists. Skeletons of strange animals, tusks, antlers and grinders' came pouring into the Society's museum. Jefferson described certain bones of a quadruped of the clawed kind' found in western Virginia. Another member put into print an Indian legend about the big naked bear.' Without offering any of its bones in evidence, he tells us that the bear, naked all over except for a spot of white hair upon its back, was the most ferocious of American animals. It devoured man and beast and was so large that an Indian or a common bear served it for but a single meal. Its heart was so small that the arrow could seldom find it. It could be slain only by a blow deftly dealt upon its backbone, and many who went forth to hunt this terror of the forest primeval never came back again.

Other philosophers interested themselves in living objects and we have luminous accounts of amphibious serpents,' 'one partridge with two hearts,' the numb-fish or torporific eel' and 'a living snake in a living horse's eye.' This horse had been placed on exhibition in Philadelphia by a free negro, who undertook to profit by the popular curiosity for disagreeable sights.

The Society early engaged itself in a scientific work which brought it wide recognition, and quite deservedly so. Already in 1768 Professor Ewing made a report to the philosophers in regard to an impending transit of Venus which it had been calculated would occur in the summer of the following year. Before that time the phenomenon had been observed only twice and then rather partially, the first time in 1639 and again in 1761. A reflecting telescope was imported from England through Franklin's kindly intercession. The day when it arrived proved to be perfectly clear, and the observations were so well made. and were recorded in so scientific a manner that the Society at once gained a high reputation among men whose good opinion it was worth while to possess. An eminent authority in Europe at that time wrote of this achievement:

The first approximately accurate results in the measurement of the spheres were given to the world not by the schooled and salaried astronomers who watched from the magnificent royal observatories of Europe, but by unpaid amateurs and devotees to science in the youthful province of Pennsylvania.

Almost simultaneously with this manifestation of the seriousness of its mind came a proposal from the Society to undertake the surveys for a canal which should be cut to join the Chesapeake and Delaware bays. To make possible this laudable work the philosophers asked the

merchants of Philadelphia to subscribe to a fund. They responded very liberally, and the Society at one time had as many as fifteen persons in its service taking levels and making surveys upon the various routes.

New York, April 5. 1744

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Mr Nicholls sells me

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL LETTER OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THE
AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

When the philosophy of the eighteenth century was at last broken up into parts and was followed by the special sciences, the Society suffered intellectually of course. It has not been able to make a choice

of bent. In the 158 years of its existence it has published about 65 volumes of proceedings which attest to the catholicity of its interest. Divergencies of mind in the nature of the case must prevent that sympathy and congeniality which formerly existed in the membership. The Society's publications, however, are reference books for much of the excellent work done in recent years by some of the most indefatigable of American scientists, such as Leidy, Brinton, Lesley and Cope.

The Society's collections include many old prints, documents and manuscripts, the library being particularly rich in Frankliniana. The rooms are hung with oil portraits of the Society's presidents and of distinguished members. Sully's Jefferson, Peale's copy of Martin's Franklin, Peale's Rittenhouse, Stuart's Washington, Sully's Wistar and Rush and busts of Franklin, Lafayette, Condorcet, Turgot, Cuvier, Rittenhouse, Provost Smith and many other eminent members of a former day are to be seen in this little treasure house, so full of colonial memories. Most of the specimens of natural history, the old models and the like have been distributed among the museums where they can be more freely used by students. But the principal trophies still remain, such as Franklin's chair, a curious leather-covered construction stuffed with hair in which he used to sit when the Society met at his home in his last days.

Another chair in the hall is the famous Jefferson chair. It is a quaint squat chair with an arm as broad as a table and it is upon this arm that Jefferson is said to have written the Declaration of Independence, an original autograph draft of which reposes in the Society's fireproof. The chair turns round by means of some awkward, clanking machinery which exists inside it, and it is a curiosity worth stopping to view. One of the high Rittenhouse clocks which still keeps time inside its old pine case, the theodolite with which Penn laid out the city of Philadelphia, an old cell battery used by Franklin in making his electrical experiments and other interesting apparatus have come down to the Philosophical Society from a hoary past.

It now aims to invigorate its members with a new sense of their responsibilities. On Mr. Fraley's death General Isaac J. Wistar, a nephew of Caspar Wistar, who was the Society's president in 1815–18, was elected to the president's chair, and it is proposed that a general meeting shall be held at least once a year to promote social intercourse and for the presentation of papers on scientific subjects. The meeting this year has been fixed for Easter week in the city of Philadelphia, and arrangements are in progress for the reception and entertainment of the members who are expected to gather there from all parts of the country on that interesting occasion.