Heroes of Science: Physicists
by William Garnett · English · Gutenberg #38583 · 532,653 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Heroes of Science: Physicists
Author: William Garnett
Release date: January 15, 2012 [eBook #38583]
Language: English
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HEROES OF SCIENCE.
HEROES OF SCIENCE.
PHYSICISTS.
BY
WILLIAM GARNETT, M.A., D.C.L.,
FORMERLY FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; PRINCIPAL OF
THE DURHAM COLLEGE OF SCIENCE, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE; HON. MEMBER
OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTE OF MINING AND MECHANICAL
ENGINEERS.
PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL
LITERATURE AND EDUCATION APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.
LONDON:
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C.;
43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.;
26, ST. GEORGE'S PLACE, HYDE PARK CORNER, S.W.
BRIGHTON: 135, NORTH STREET.
NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG AND CO.
PREFACE.
The following pages claim no originality, and no merits beyond that of
bringing within reach of every boy and girl material which would
otherwise be available only to those who had extensive libraries at
their command, and much time at their disposal. In the schools and
colleges in which the principles of physical science are well taught,
the history of the discoveries whereby those principles have been
established has been too much neglected. The series to which the
present volume belongs is intended, in some measure, to meet this
deficiency.
A complete history of physical science would, if it could be written,
form a library of considerable dimensions. The following pages deal
only with the biographies of a few distinguished men, who, by birth,
were British subjects, and incidental allusions only are made to
living philosophers; but, notwithstanding these narrow restrictions,
the foundations of the Royal Society of London, of the American
Philosophical Society, of the great Library of Pennsylvania, and of
the Royal Institution, are events, some account of which comes within
the compass of the volume. The gradual development of our knowledge of
electricity, of the mechanical theory of heat, and of the undulatory
theory of optics, will be found delineated in the biographies
selected, though no continuous history is traced in the case of any
one of these branches of physics.
The sources from which the matter contained in the following pages has
been derived have been, in addition to the published works of the
subjects of the several sketches, the following:--
"The Encyclopaedia Britannica."
"Memoir of the Honourable Robert Boyle," by Thomas Birch, M.A.,
prefixed to the folio edition of his works, which was published in
London in 1743.
"Life of Benjamin Franklin," from his own writings, by John Bigelow.
Dr. G. Wilson's "Life of Cavendish," which forms the first volume of
the publications of the Cavendish Society; and the "Electrical
Researches of the Hon. Henry Cavendish, F.R.S.," edited by the late
Professor James Clerk Maxwell.
"The Life of Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford," by George E.
Ellis, published by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in
connection with the complete edition of his works.
"Memoir of Thomas Young," by the late Dean Peacock.
Dr. Bence Jones's "Life of Faraday;" and Professor Tyndall's "Faraday
as a Discoverer."
"Life of James Clerk Maxwell," by Professor Lewis Campbell and William
Garnett.
It is hoped that the perusal of the following sketches may prove as
instructive to the reader as their preparation has been to the writer.
WM. GARNETT.
NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE,
_December, 1885_.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
ROBERT BOYLE 5
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 38
HENRY CAVENDISH 125
COUNT RUMFORD 148
THOMAS YOUNG 194
MICHAEL FARADAY 237
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL 278
CONCLUSION 309
HEROES OF SCIENCE.
INTRODUCTION.
The dawn of true ideas respecting mechanics has been described in the
volume of this series devoted to astronomers. At the time when the
first of the following biographies opens there were a few men who held
sound views respecting the laws of motion and the principles of
hydrostatics. Considerable advance had been made in the subject of
geometrical optics; the rectilinear propagation of light and the laws
of reflection having been known to the Greeks and Arabians, whilst
Willebrod Snellius, Professor of Mathematics at Leyden, had correctly
enunciated the laws of refraction very early in the seventeenth
century. Pliny mentions the action of a sphere of rock-crystal and of
a glass globe filled with water in bringing light to a focus. Roger
Bacon used segments of a glass sphere as lenses; and in the eleventh
century Alhazen made many measurements of the angles of incidence and
refraction, though he did not succeed in discovering the law. Huyghens
developed to a great extent the undulatory theory; while Newton at the
same time made great contributions to the subject of geometrical
optics, decomposed white light by means of a prism, investigated the
colours of thin plates, and some cases of diffraction, and speculated
on the nature, properties, and functions of the ether, which was
equally necessary to the corpuscular as to the undulatory theory of
light, if any of the phenomena of interference were to be explained.
The velocity of light was first measured by Roemer, in 1676. The
camera obscura was invented by Baptista Porta, a wealthy Neapolitan,
in 1560; and Kepler explained the action of the eye as an optical
instrument, in 1604. Antonio de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalatro,
discovered the fringe of colours produced by sunlight once reflected
from the interior of a globe of water, and this led, in Newton's
hands, to the complete explanation of the rainbow.
The germ of the mechanical theory of heat is to be found in the
writings of Lord Bacon. The first thermometers which were blown in
glass with a bulb and tube hermetically sealed, were made by a
craftsman in Florence, in the time of Torricelli. The graduations on
these thermometers were made by attaching little beads of coloured
glass to their stems, and they were carried about Europe by members of
the Florentine Academy, in order to learn whether ice melted at the
same temperature in all latitudes.
In electricity the attraction of light bodies by amber when rubbed,
was known at least six hundred years before the Christian era, and the
shocks of the torpedo were described by Pliny and by Aristotle; but
the phenomena were not associated in men's minds until recent times.
Dr. Gilbert, of Colchester, Physician to Queen Elizabeth, may be
regarded as the founder of the modern science. He distinguished two
classes of bodies, viz. electrics, or those which would attract light
bodies when rubbed; and non-electrics, or those which could not be so
excited. The first electric machine was constructed by Otto von
Guericke, the inventor of the Magdeburg hemispheres, who mounted a
ball of sulphur so that it could be made rapidly to rotate while it
was excited by the friction of the hand. He observed the repulsion
which generally follows the attraction of a light body by an
electrified object after the two have come in contact. He also noticed
that certain bodies placed near to electrified bodies possessed
similar powers of attraction to those of the electrified bodies
themselves. Newton replaced the sulphur globe of Otto von Guericke by
a globe of glass. Stephen Gray discovered the conduction of
electricity, in 1729, when he succeeded in transmitting a charge to a
distance of 886 feet along a pack-thread suspended by silk strings so
as to insulate it from the earth. Desaguliers showed that Gilbert's
"electrics" were simply those bodies which could not conduct
electricity, while all conductors were "non-electrics;" and Dufay
showed that all bodies could be electrified by friction if supported
on insulating stands. He also showed that there were two kinds of
electrification, and called one _vitreous_, the other _resinous_.
Gray, Hawksbee, and Dr. Wall all noticed the similarity between
lightning and the electric discharge. The prime conductor was first
added to the electric machine by Boze, of Wittenberg; and Winkler, of
Leipsic, employed a cushion instead of the hand to produce friction
against the glass. The accumulation of electricity in the Leyden jar
was discovered accidentally by Cuneus, a pupil of Muschenbroeck, of
Leyden, about 1745, while attempting to electrify water in a bottle
held in his hand. A nail passed through the cork, by which the
electricity was communicated to the water. On touching the nail after
charging the water, he received the shock of the Leyden jar. This
brings the history of electrical discovery down to the time of
Franklin.
ROBERT BOYLE.
Robert Boyle was descended from a family who, in Saxon times, held
land in the county of Hereford, and whose name in the Doomsday Book is
written Biuvile. His father was Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork, to whom
the fortunes of the family were largely due. Richard Boyle was born in
the city of Canterbury, October 3, 1566. He was educated at Bene't
College (now Corpus Christi College), Cambridge, and afterwards became
a member of the Middle Temple. Finding his means insufficient for the
prosecution of his legal studies, he determined to seek his fortune
abroad. In 1595 he married, at Limerick, one of the daughters of
William Apsley, who brought him land of the value of L500 per annum.
In his autobiography the Earl of Cork writes:--
When first I arrived at Dublin, in Ireland, the 23rd of June
1588, all my wealth then was twenty-seven pounds three shillings
in money, and two tokens which my mother had given me, viz. a
diamond ring, which I have ever since and still do wear, and a
bracelet of gold worth about ten pounds; a taffety doublet cut
with and upon taffety, a pair of black velvet breeches laced, a
new Milan fustian suit laced and cut upon taffety, two cloaks,
competent linen, and necessaries, with my rapier and dagger. And
since, the blessing of God, whose heavenly providence guided me
hither, hath enriched my weak estate, in beginning with such a
fortune, as I need not envy any of my neighbours, and added no
care or burthen of my conscience thereunto. And the 23rd of
June, 1632, I have served my God, Queen Elizabeth, King James,
and King Charles, full forty-four years, and so long after as it
shall please God to enable me.
Richard Boyle's property in Ireland increased so rapidly that he was
accused to Queen Elizabeth of receiving pay from some foreign power.
When about to visit England in order to clear himself of this charge,
the rebellion in Munster broke out; his lands were wasted, and his
income for the time destroyed. Reaching London, he returned to his old
chambers in the Middle Temple, until he entered the service of the
Earl of Essex, to whom the government of Ireland had been entrusted.
The charges against him were then resumed, and he was made a prisoner,
and kept in confinement until the Earl of Essex had gone over to
Ireland. At length he obtained a hearing before the queen, who fully
acquitted him of the charges, gave him her hand to kiss, and promised
to employ him in her own service; at the same time she dismissed Sir
Henry Wallop, who was Treasurer for Ireland, and prominent among
Boyle's accusers, from his office.
A few days afterwards, Richard Boyle was appointed by the queen Clerk
to the Council of Munster, and having purchased a ship of Sir Walter
Raleigh, he returned to Ireland with ammunition and provisions.
"Then, as Clerk of the Council, I attended the Lord President in all
his employments, and waited upon him at the siege of Kingsale, and was
employed by his Lordship to her Majesty, with the news of that happy
victory; in which employment I made a speedy expedition to the court;
for I left my Lord President at Shannon Castle, near Corke, on the
Monday morning, about two of the clock, and the next day, being
Tuesday, I delivered my packet, and supped with Sir Robert Cecil,
being then principal Secretary of State, at his house in the Strand;
who, after supper, held me in discourse till two of the clock in the
morning; and by seven that morning called upon me to attend him to the
court, where he presented me to her Majesty in her bed-chamber, who
remembered me, calling me by my name, and giving me her hand to kiss,
telling me that she was glad that I was the happy man to bring the
first news of that glorious victory ... and so I was dismissed with
grace and favour."
In reading of this journey from Cork to London, it is almost necessary
to be reminded that it took place two hundred and fifty years before
the introduction of steam-boats and railways. At the close of the
rebellion, Richard Boyle purchased from Sir Walter Raleigh all his
lands in Munster; and on July 25, 1603, he married his second wife,
Catharine, the only daughter of Sir Geoffrey Fenton, principal
Secretary of State, and Privy Councillor in Ireland, "with whom I
never demanded any marriage portion, neither promise of any, it not
being in my consideration; yet her father, after my marriage, gave me
one thousand pounds in gold with her. But that gift of his daughter
unto me I must ever thankfully acknowledge as the crown of all my
blessings; for she was a most religious, virtuous, loving, and
obedient wife unto me all the days of her life." He was knighted by
the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir George Carew, on his wedding-day; was
sworn Privy Councillor of State of the Kingdom of Ireland in 1612;
created Lord Boyle, Baron of Youghall, September 29, 1616; Lord
Viscount of Dungarvon and Earl of Cork, October 26, 1620; one of the
Lords Justices of Ireland, with a salary of L1200 per annum, in 1629;
and Lord High Treasurer of Ireland, November 9, 1631.
Robert Boyle, the seventh son of the Earl of Cork, was born January
25, 1627. His mother died February 16, 1630. The earl lived in
prosperity in Ireland till the breaking out of the rebellion in 1641,
and died at Youghall in September, 1643. It is said that when Cromwell
saw the vast improvements which the earl had made on his estate in
Munster, he declared that "if there had been an Earl of Cork in every
province, it would have been impossible for the Irish to have raised a
rebellion."
At a very early age Robert was sent by his father to a country nurse,
"who, by early inuring him, by slow degrees, to a coarse but cleanly
diet, and to the usual passion of the air, gave him so vigorous a
complexion that both hardships were made easy to him by custom, and
the delights of conveniences and ease were endeared to him by their
rarity." Making the acquaintance of some children who stuttered in
their speech, he, by imitation, acquired the same habit, "so
contagious and catching are men's faults, and so dangerous is the
familiar commerce of those condemnable customs, that, being imitated
but in jest, come to be learned and acquired in earnest." Before going
to school he studied French and Latin, and showed considerable
aptitude for scholarship. He was then sent to Eton, where his master
took much notice of him, and "would sometimes give him unasked
play-days, and oft bestow upon him such balls and tops and other
implements of idleness as he had taken away from others that had
unduly used them."
While at school, in the early morning, a part of the wall of the
bedroom, with the bed, chairs, books, and furniture of the room above,
fell on him and his brother. "His brother had his band torn about his
neck, and his coat upon his back, and his chair crushed and broken
under him; but by a lusty youth, then accidentally in the room, was
snatched from out the ruins, by which [Robert] had, in all
probability, been immediately oppressed, had not his bed been
curtained by a watchful Providence, which kept all heavy things from
falling on it; but the dust of the crumbled rubbish raised was so
thick that he might there have been stifled had not he remembered to
wrap his head in the sheet, which served him as a strainer, through
which none but the purer air could find a passage." At Eton he spent
nearly four years, "in the last of which he forgot much of that Latin
he had got, for he was so addicted to more solid parts of knowledge
that he hated the study of bare words naturally, as something that
relished too much of pedantry to consort with his disposition and
designs." On leaving Eton he joined his father at Stalbridge, in
Dorsetshire, and was sent to reside with "Mr. W. Douch, then parson of
that place," who took the supervision of his studies. Here he renewed
his acquaintance with Latin, and devoted some attention to English
verse, spending some of his idle hours in composing verses, "most of
which, the day he came of age, he sacrificed to Vulcan, with a design
to make the rest perish by the same fate." A little later he returned
to his father's house in Stalbridge, and was placed under the tutelage
of a French gentleman, who had been tutor to two of his brothers.
In October, 1638, Robert Boyle and his brother were sent into France.
After a short stay at Lyons, they reached Geneva, where Robert
remained with his tutor for about a year and three quarters. During
his residence here an incident occurred which he regarded as the most
important event of his life, and which we therefore give in his own
words.
"To frame a right apprehension of this, you must understand that,
though his inclinations were ever virtuous, and his life free from
scandal and inoffensive, yet had the piety he was master of already so
diverted him from aspiring unto more, that Christ, who long had lain
asleep in his conscience (as He once did in the ship), must now, as
then, be waked by a storm. For at a time which (being the very heat of
summer) promised nothing less, about the dead of night, that adds most
terror to such accidents, [he] was suddenly waked in a fright with
such loud claps of thunder (which are oftentimes very terrible in
those hot climes and seasons), that he thought the earth would owe an
ague to the air, and every clap was both preceded and attended with
flashes of lightning, so frequent and so dazzling that [he] began to
imagine them the sallies of that fire that must consume the world. The
long continuance of that dismal tempest, where the winds were so loud
as almost drowned the noise of the very thunder, and the showers so
hideous as almost quenched the lightning ere it could reach his eyes,
confirmed him in his apprehensions of the day of judgment's being at
hand. Whereupon the consideration of his unpreparedness to welcome
it, and the hideousness of being surprised by it in an unfit
condition, made him resolve and vow that, if his fears were that night
disappointed, all his further additions to his life should be more
religiously and watchfully employed. The morning came, and a serene,
cloudless sky returned, when he ratified his determinations so
solemnly, that from that day he dated his conversion, renewing, now he
was past danger, the vow he had made whilst he believed himself to be
in it; and though his fear was (and he blushed it was so) the occasion
of his resolution of amendment, yet at least he might not owe his more
deliberate consecration of himself to piety to any less noble motive
than that of its own excellence."
After leaving Geneva, he crossed the Alps and travelled through
Northern Italy. Here he spent much time in learning Italian; "the rest
of his spare hours he spent in reading the modern history in Italian,
and the new paradoxes of the great stargazer Galileo, whose ingenious
books, perhaps because they could not be so otherwise, were confuted
by a decree from Rome; his highness the Pope, it seems, presuming, and
that justly, that the infallibility of his chair extended equally to
determine points in philosophy as in religion, and loth to have the
stability of that earth questioned in which he had established his
kingdom."
Having visited Rome, he at length returned to France, and was detained
at Marseilles, awaiting a remittance from the earl to enable him to
continue his travels. Through some miscarriage, the money which the
earl sent did not arrive, and Robert and his brother had to depend on
the credit of the tutor to procure the means to enable them to return
home. They reached England in the summer of 1644, "where we found
things in such confusion that, although the manor of Stalbridge were,
by my father's decease, descended unto me, yet it was near four months
before I could get thither." On reaching London, Robert Boyle resided
for some time with his sister, Lady Ranelagh, and was thus prevented
from entering the Royalist Army. Later on he returned for a short time
to France; visited Cambridge in December, 1645, and then took up his
residence at Stalbridge till May, 1650, where he commenced the study
of chemistry and natural philosophy.
It was in October, 1646, that Boyle first made mention of the
"_invisible college_," which afterwards developed into the Royal
Society. Writing to a Fellow of Magdalen College, Cambridge, in
February, 1647, he says, "The corner-stones of the _invisible_, or, as
they term themselves, the _philosophical college_, do now and then
honour me with their company." It appears that a desire to escape from
the troubles of the times had induced several persons to take refuge
in philosophical pursuits, and, meeting together to discuss the
subjects of their study, they formed the "invisible college." Boyle
says, "I will conclude their praises with the recital of their
chiefest fault, which is very incident to almost all good things, and
that is, that there is not enough of them." Dr. Wallis, one of the
first members of the society, states that Mr. Theodore Hooke, a German
of the Palatinate, then resident in London, "gave the first occasion
and first suggested those meetings and many others. These meetings we
held sometimes at Dr. Goddard's lodging, in Wood Street (or some
convenient place near), on occasion of his keeping an operator in his
house, for grinding glasses for telescopes and microscopes, and
sometimes at a convenient place in Cheapside; sometimes at Gresham
College, or some place near adjoining. Our business was (precluding
theology and State affairs) to discourse and consider of philosophical
inquiries, and such as related thereunto; as physic, anatomy,
geometry, astronomy, navigation, statics, magnetics, chemics,
mechanics, and natural experiments, with the state of these studies as
then cultivated at home and abroad. About the year 1648-49 some of us
being removed to Oxford, first Dr. Wilkins, then I, and soon after Dr.
Goddard, our company divided. Those in London continued to meet there
as before, and we with them when we had occasion to be there. And
those of us at Oxford, with Dr. Ward, since Bishop of Salisbury, Dr.
Ralph Bathurst, now President of Trinity College in Oxford, Dr. Petty,
since Sir William Petty, Dr. Willis, then an eminent physician in
Oxford, and divers others, continued such meetings in Oxford, and
brought those studies into fashion there; meeting first at Dr.
Petty's lodgings, in an apothecary's house, because of the convenience
of inspecting drugs and the like, as there was occasion; and after his
remove to Ireland (though not so constantly) at the lodgings of Dr.
Wilkins, then Warden of Wadham College; and after his removal to
Trinity College in Cambridge, at the lodgings of the Honourable Mr.
Robert Boyle, then resident for divers years in Oxford. These meetings
in London continued, and after the king's return, in 1660, were
increased with the accession of divers worthy and honourable persons,
and were afterwards incorporated by the name of the _Royal Society_,
and so continue to this day."
Boyle was only about twenty years of age when he wrote his "Free
Discourse against Swearing;" his "Seraphic Love; or, Some Motives and
Incentives to the Love of God;" and his "Essay on Mistaken Modesty."
"Seraphic Love" was the last of a series of treatises on love, but the
only one of the series that he published, as he considered the others
too trifling to be published alone or in conjunction with it. In a
letter to Lady Ranelagh, he refers to his laboratory as "a kind of
Elysium," and there were few things which gave him so much pleasure as
his furnaces and philosophical experiments. In 1652 he visited
Ireland, returning in the following summer. In the autumn he was again
obliged to visit Ireland, and remained there till the summer of 1654,
though residence in that country was far from agreeable to him. He
styled it "a barbarous country, where chemical spirits were so
misunderstood, and chemical instruments so unprocurable, that it was
hard to have any hermetic thoughts in it." On his return he settled in
Oxford, and there his lodgings soon became the centre of the
scientific life of the university. Boyle and his friends may be
regarded as the pioneers of experimental philosophy in this country.
To Boyle the methods of Aristotle appeared little more than
discussions on words; for a long time he refused to study the
philosophy of Descartes, lest he should be turned aside from reasoning
based strictly on the results of experiment. The method pursued by
these philosophers had been fully discussed by Lord Bacon, but at best
his experimental methods, though most complete and systematic, existed
only upon paper, and it was reserved for Boyle and his friends to put
the Baconian philosophy into actual practice.
It was during his residence at Oxford that he invented the air-pump,
which was afterwards improved for him by Hooke, and with which he
conducted most of those experiments on the "spring" and weight of the
air, which led up to the investigations that have rendered his name
inseparably connected with "the gaseous laws." The experiments of
Galileo and of Torricelli had shown that the pressure of the air was
capable of supporting a column of water about thirty-four feet in
height, or a column of mercury nearly thirty inches high. The younger
Pascal, at the request of Torricelli, had carried a barometer to the
summit of the Puy de Dome, and demonstrated that the height of the
column of mercury supported by the air diminishes as the altitude is
increased. Otto von Guericke had constructed the Magdeburg
hemispheres, and shown that, when exhausted, they could not be
separated by sixteen horses, eight pulling one way and eight the
other. He was aware that the same traction could have been produced by
eight horses if one of the hemispheres had been attached to a fixed
obstacle; but, with the instincts of a popular lecturer, he considered
that the spectacle would thus be rendered less striking, and it was
prepared for the king's entertainment. Boyle wished for an air-pump
with an aperture in the receiver sufficiently large for the
introduction of various objects, and an arrangement for exhausting it
without filling the receiver with water or otherwise interfering with
the objects placed therein. His apparatus consisted of a large glass
globe capable of containing about three gallons or thereabouts,
terminating in an open tube below, and with an aperture of about four
inches diameter at the top. Around this aperture was cemented a turned
brass ring, the inner surface being conical, and into this conical
seat was fitted a brass plate with a thick rim, but drilled with a
small hole in the centre. To this hole, which was also conical, was
fitted a brass stopper, which could be turned round when the receiver
was exhausted. By attaching a string to this stopper, which was so
long as to enter the receiver to the depth of two or three inches, and
turning the stopper in its seat, the string could be wound up, and
thus objects could be moved within the receiver. The tube at the
bottom of the receiver communicated with a stop-cock, and this with
the upper end of the pumpbarrel, which was inverted, so that this
stop-cock, which was at the top of the barrel, took the place of the
foot-valve. The piston was solid, made of wood, and surrounded with
sole leather, which was kept well greased. There being no valve in the
piston, it was necessary to place an exhaust-valve in the upper end of
the cylinder. This consisted of a small brass plug closing a conical
hole so that it could be removed at pleasure. The construction of the
cylinder was, therefore, similar to that of an ordinary force-pump,
except that the valves had to be moved by hand (as in the early forms
of the steam-engine). The piston was raised and depressed by means of
a rack and pinion. The pumps could be used either for exhausting the
receiver or for forcing air into it, according to the order in which
the "valves" were opened. If the stop-cock communicating with the
receiver were open while the piston was being drawn down, and the
brass plug removed so as to open the exhaust-valve when the piston was
being forced up, the receiver would gradually be exhausted. If the
brass plug were removed during the descent of the piston, and the
stop-cock opened during its ascent, air would be forced into the
receiver. In the latter case it was necessary to take special
precautions to prevent the brass plate at the top of the receiver
being raised from its seat. All joints were made air-tight with
"diachylon," and when, through the bursting of a glass bulb within it,
the receiver became cracked, the crack was rendered air-tight by the
same means. Other receivers of smaller capacity were also provided, on
account of the greater readiness with which they could be exhausted.
With this apparatus Boyle carried out a long series of experiments. He
could reduce the pressure in the large receiver to somewhat less than
that corresponding to an inch of mercury, or about a foot of water.
Squeezing a bladder so as to expel nearly all the air, tying the neck,
and then introducing it into the receiver, he found, on working the
pump, that the bladder swelled so that at length it became completely
distended. In order to account for this great expansibility, Boyle
pictured the constitution of the air in the following way. He supposed
the air to consist of separate particles, each resembling a spiral
spring, which became tightly wound when exposed to great pressure, but
which expanded so as to occupy a larger circle when the pressure was
diminished. Each of these little spirals he supposed to rotate about a
diameter so as to exclude every other body from the sphere in which it
moved. Increasing the length of the diameter tenfold would increase
the volume of one of these spheres, and therefore the volume of the
gas, a thousandfold. Possibly this was only intended as a mental
illustration, exhibiting a mechanism by which very great expansion
might conceivably be produced, and scarcely pretending to be
considered a _theory_ of the constitution of the air. Boyle's first
idea seems to have been derived from a lock of wool in which the
elasticity of each fibre caused the lock to expand after it had been
compressed in the hand. In another passage he speaks of the air as
consisting of a number of bodies capable of striking against a surface
exposed to them. He demonstrated the weight of the air by placing a
delicate balance within the receiver, suspending from one arm a
bladder half filled with water, and balancing it with brass weights.
On exhausting the air, the bladder preponderated, and, by repeating
the experiment with additional weights on the other arm until a
balance was effected in the exhausted receiver, he determined the
amount of the preponderance. In another experiment he compressed air
in a bladder by tying a pack-thread round it, balanced it from one arm
of his balance in the open air; then, pricking the bladder so as to
relieve the pressure, he found that with the escape of the compressed
air the weight diminished.
One of the most important of his experiments with the air-pump was the
following. He placed within the receiver the cistern of a mercurial
barometer, the tube of which was made to pass through the central hole
in the brass plate, from which the stopper had been removed. The space
around the tube was filled up with cement, and the receiver
exhausted. At each stroke of the pump the mercury in the barometer
tube descended, but through successively diminishing distances, until
at length it stood only an inch above the mercury in the cistern. The
experiment was then repeated with a tube four feet long and filled
with water. This constituted the nineteenth experiment referred to
later on. A great many strokes of the pump had to be made before the
water began to descend. At length it fell till the surface in the tube
stood only about a foot above that in the tank. Placing vessels of
ordinary spring-water and of distilled rain-water in the receiver, he
found that, after the exhaustion had reached a certain stage, bubbles
of gas were copiously evolved from the spring-water, but not from the
distilled water. On another occasion he caused warm water to boil by a
few strokes of the pump; and, continuing the exhaustion, the water was
made to boil at intervals until it became only lukewarm. The
experiment was repeated with several volatile liquids. He also noticed
the cloud formed in the receiver when the air was allowed rapidly to
expand; but the mechanical theory of heat had not then made sufficient
progress to enable him to account for the condensation by the loss of
heat due to the work done by the expanding air. The very minute
accuracy of his observations is conspicuous in the descriptions of
most of his experiments. That the air is the usual medium for the
conveyance of sound was shown by suspending a watch by a linen thread
within the receiver. On exhausting the air, the ticking of the watch
ceased to be heard. A pretty experiment consisted in placing a bottle
of a certain fuming liquid within the receiver; on exhausting the air,
the fumes fell over the neck of the bottle and poured over the stand
on which it was placed like a stream of water. Another experiment, the
thirty-second, is worthy of mention on account of the use to which it
was afterwards applied in the controversy respecting the cause of
suction. The receiver, having been exhausted, was removed from the
cylinder, the stop-cock being turned off, and a small brass valve, to
which a scale-pan was attached, was placed just under the aperture of
the tube below the stop-cock. On turning the latter, the stream of air
raised the valve, closing the aperture, and the atmospheric pressure
supported it until a considerable weight had been placed in the
scale-pan. Because the receiver could not be exhausted so thoroughly
as the pump-cylinder, Boyle attempted to measure the pressure of the
air by determining what weight could be supported by the piston. He
found first that a weight of twenty-eight pounds suspended directly
from the piston was sufficient to overcome friction when air was
admitted above the piston. When the access of air to the top of the
piston was prevented, more than one hundred pounds additional weight
was required to draw down the piston. The diameter of the cylinder was
about three inches.
Boyle's style of reasoning is well illustrated by the following from
his paper on "The Spring of the Air:"--
"In the next place, these experiments may teach us what to judge of
the vulgar axiom received for so many ages as an undoubted truth in
the peripatetick schools, that Nature abhors and flieth a vacuum, and
that to such a degree that no human power (to go no higher) is able to
make one in the universe; wherein heaven and earth would change
places, and all its other bodies rather act contrary to their own
nature than suffer it.... It will not easily, then, be intelligibly
made out how hatred or aversation, which is a passion of the soul, can
either for a vacuum or any other object be supposed to be in water, or
such like inanimate body, which cannot be presumed to know when a
vacuum would ensue, if they did not bestir themselves to prevent it;
nor to be so generous as to act contrary to what is most conducive to
their own particular preservation for the public good of the universe.
As much, then, of intelligible and probable truth as is contained in
this metaphorical expression seems to amount but to this--that by the
wise Author of nature (who is justly said to have made all things in
number, weight, and measure) the universe, and the parts of it, are so
contrived that it is hard to make a vacuum in it, as if they
studiously conspired to prevent it. And how far this itself may be
granted deserves to be further considered.
"For, in the next place, our experiments seem to teach that the
supposed aversation of Nature to a vacuum is but accidental, or in
consequence, partly of the weight and fluidity, or, at least,
fluxility of the bodies here below; and partly, and perhaps
principally, of the air, whose restless endeavour to expand itself
every way makes it either rush in itself or compel the interposed
bodies into all spaces where it finds no greater resistance than it
can surmount. And that in those motions which are made _ob fugam
vacui_ (as the common phrase is), bodies act without such generosity
and consideration as is wont to be ascribed to them, is apparent
enough in our thirty-second experiment, where the torrent of air, that
seemed to strive to get into the emptied receiver, did plainly prevent
its own design, by so impelling the valve as to make it shut the only
orifice the air was to get [in] at. And if afterwards either Nature or
the internal air had a design the external air should be attracted,
they seemed to prosecute it very unwisely by continuing to suck the
valve so strongly, when they found that by that suction the valve
itself could not be drawn in; whereas, by forbearing to suck, the
valve would, by its own weight, have fallen down and suffered the
excluded air to return freely, and to fill again the exhausted
vessel....
"And as for the care of the public good of the universe ascribed to
dead and stupid bodies, we shall only demand why, in our nineteenth
experiment, upon the exsuction of the ambient air, the water deserted
the upper half of the glass tube, and did not ascend to fill it up
till the external air was let in upon it. Whereas, by its easy and
sudden rejoining that upper part of the tube, it appeared both that
there was then much space devoid of air, and that the water might,
with small or no resistance, have ascended into it, if it could have
done so without the impulsion of the readmitted air; which, it seems,
was necessary to mind the water of its formerly neglected duty to the
universe."
Boyle then goes on to explain the phenomena correctly by the pressure
of the air. Elsewhere he accounts for the diminished pressure on the
top of a mountain by the diminished weight of the superincumbent
column of air.
The treatise on "The Spring of the Air" met with much opposition, and
Boyle considered it necessary to defend his doctrine against the
objections of Franciscus Linus and Hobbes. In this defence he
described the experiment in connection with which he is most generally
remembered. Linus had admitted that the air might possess a certain
small amount of elasticity, but maintained that the force with which
mercury rose in a barometer tube was due mainly to a totally different
action, as though a string were pulling upon it from above. This was
his funicular hypothesis. Boyle undertook to show that the pressure of
the air might be made to support a much higher column of mercury than
that of the barometer. To this end he took a glass tube several feet
in length, and bent so as to form two vertical legs connected below.
The shorter leg was little more than a foot long, and hermetically
closed at the top. The longer leg was nearly eight feet in length, and
open at the top. The tube was suspended by strings upon the staircase,
the bend at the bottom pressing lightly against the bottom of a box
placed to receive the mercury employed in case of accident. Each leg
of the tube was provided with a paper scale. Mercury was poured in at
the open end, the tube being tilted so as to allow some of the air to
escape from the shorter limb until the mercury stood at the same level
in both legs when the tube was vertical. The length of the closed tube
occupied by the air was then just twelve inches. The height of the
barometer was about 29-1/8 inches. Mercury was gently poured into the
open limb by one operator, while another watched its height in the
closed limb. The results of the experiments are given in the table on
the opposite page.
In this table the third column gives the result of adding to the
second column the height of the barometer, which expresses in inches
of mercury the pressure of the air on the free surface of the mercury
in the longer limb. The fourth column gives the total pressure, in
inches of mercury, on the hypothesis that the pressure of the air
varies inversely as the volume. The agreement between the third and
fourth columns is very close, considering the roughness of the
experiment and that no trouble appears to have been taken to
_calibrate_ the shorter limb of the tube, and justified Boyle in
concluding that the hypothesis referred to expresses the relation
between the volume and pressure of a given mass of air.
+-----------+---------------+----------------+--------------+
|Length of |Height of |Total pressure |Total pressure|
|closed tube|mercury in open|on air in inches|according to |
|occupied |tube above that|of mercury. |Boyle's law. |
|by air. |in closed tube.| | |
+-----------+---------------+----------------+--------------+
| 12 | 0 | 29-2/16 | 29-2/16 |
| 11-1/2 | 1-7/16 | 30-9/16 | 30-6/16 |
| 11 | 2-13/16 | 31-15/16 | 31-12/16 |
| 10-1/2 | 4-6/16 | 33-8/16 | 33-1/7 |
| 10 | 6-3/16 | 35-5/16 | 35 |
| 9-1/2 | 7-14/16 | 37 | 36-15/19 |
| 9 | 10-1/16 | 39-3/16 | 38-7/8 |
| 8-1/2 | 12-8/16 | 41-10/16 | 41-2/17 |
| 8 | 15-1/16 | 44-3/16 | 43-11/16 |
| 7-1/2 | 17-15/16 | 47-1/16 | 46-3/5 |
| 7 | 21-3/16 | 50-5/16 | 50 |
| 6-1/2 | 25-3/16 | 54-5/16 | 53-10/13 |
| 6 | 29-11/16 | 58-13/16 | 58-2/8 |
| 5-3/4 | 32-3/16 | 61-5/16 | 60-13/23 |
| 5-1/2 | 34-15/16 | 64-1/16 | 63-6/11 |
| 5-1/4 | 37-15/16 | 67-1/16 | 66-4/7 |
| 5 | 41-9/16 | 70-11/16 | 70 |
| 4-3/4 | 45 | 74-2/16 | 73-11/19 |
| 4-1/2 | 48-12/16 | 77-14/16 | 77-2/3 |
| 4-1/4 | 53-11/16 | 82-13/16 | 82-4/17 |
| 4 | 58-2/16 | 87-14/16 | 87-1/8 |
| 3-3/4 | 63-15/16 | 93-1/16 | 93-1/5 |
| 3-1/2 | 71-5/16 | 100-7/16 | 99-6/7 |
| 3-1/4 | 78-11/16 | 107-13/16 | 107-7/13 |
| 3 | 88-7/16 | 117-9/16 | 116-4/8 |
+-----------+---------------+----------------+--------------+
To extend the investigation so as to include expansion below
atmospheric pressure, a different apparatus was employed. It consisted
of a glass tube about six feet in length, closed at the lower end and
filled with mercury. Into this bath of mercury was plunged a length of
quill tube, and the upper end was sealed with wax. When the wax and
air in the tube had cooled, a hot pin was passed through the wax,
making a small orifice by which the amount of air in the tube was
adjusted so as to occupy exactly one inch of its length as measured by
a paper scale attached thereto, after again sealing the wax. The quill
tube was then raised, and the height of the surface of the mercury in
the tube above that in the bath noticed, together with the length of
the tube occupied by the air. The difference between the height of the
barometer and the height of the mercury in the tube above that in the
bath gave the pressure on the imprisoned air in inches of mercury. The
result showed that the volume varied very nearly in the inverse ratio
of the pressure. A certain amount of air, however, clung to the sides
of the quill tube when immersed in the mercury, and no care was taken
to remove it by boiling the mercury or otherwise; in consequence of
this, as the mercury descended, this air escaped and joined the rest
of the air in the tube. This made the pressure rather greater than it
should have been towards the end of the experiment, and when the tube
was again pressed down into the bath it was found that, when the
surfaces of the mercury within and without the tube were at the same
level, the air occupied nearly 1-1/8 inch instead of one inch of the
tube. These experiments first established the truth of the great law
known as "Boyle's law," which states that _the volume of a given mass
of a perfect gas varies inversely as the pressure to which it is
exposed_.
Another experiment, to show that the pressure of the air was the cause
of suction, Boyle succeeded in carrying out at a later date. Two discs
of marble were carefully polished, so that when a little spirit of
turpentine was placed between them the lower disc, with a pound weight
suspended from it, was supported by the upper one. The apparatus was
introduced into the air-pump, and a considerable amount of shaking
proved insufficient to separate the discs. After sixteen strokes of
the pump, on opening the communication between the receiver and
cylinder, when no mechanical vibration occurred, the discs separated.
Upon the Restoration in 1660, the Earl of Clarendon, who was Lord
Chancellor of England, endeavoured to persuade Boyle to enter holy
orders, urging the interest of the Church as the chief motive for the
proceeding. This made some impression upon Boyle, but he declined for
two reasons--first, because he thought that he would have a greater
influence for good if he had no share in the patrimony of the Church;
and next, because he had never felt "an inward motion to it by the
Holy Ghost."
In 1649 an association was incorporated by Parliament, to be called
"the President and Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New
England," whose object should be "to receive and dispose of moneys in
such manner as shall best and principally conduce to the preaching and
propagating the gospel among the natives, and for the maintenance of
schools and nurseries of learning for the education of the children of
the natives; for which purpose a general collection was appointed to
be made in and through all the counties, cities, towns, and parishes
of England and Wales, for a charitable contribution, to be as the
foundation of so pious and great an undertaking." The society was
revived by special charter in 1661, and Boyle was appointed president,
an office he continued to hold until shortly before his death. The
society afterwards enlarged its sphere of operations, and became the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
In the same year (1661) Boyle published "Some Considerations on the
Usefulness of Experimental Natural Philosophy," etc., and in 1663 an
extremely interesting paper on "Experiments and Considerations
touching Colours." In the course of this paper he describes some very
beautiful experiments with a tincture of _Lignum nephriticum_, wherein
the dichroism of the extract is made apparent. Boyle found that by
transmitted light it appeared of a bright golden colour, but when
viewed from the side from which it was illuminated the light emitted
was sky blue, and in some cases bright green. By arranging experiments
so that some parts of the liquid were seen by the transmitted light
and some by the scattered light, very beautiful effects were produced.
Boyle endeavoured to learn something of the nature of colours by
projecting spectra on differently coloured papers, and observing the
appearance of the papers when illuminated by the several spectral
rays. He also passed sunlight, concentrated by a lens, through plates
of differently coloured glass superposed, allowing the light to fall
on a white paper screen, and observing the tint of the light which
passed through each combination. But the most interesting of these
experiments was the actual mixture of light of different colours by
forming two spectra, one by means of a fixed prism, the other by a
prism held in the hand, and superposing the latter on the former so
that different colours were made to coincide. This experiment was
repeated in a modified form, nearly two hundred years later, by
Helmholtz, who found that the mixture of blue and yellow lights
produced pink. Unfortunately, Boyle's spectra were far from pure, for,
the source of light being of considerable dimensions, the different
colours overlapped one another, as in Newton's experiments, and in
consequence some of his conclusions were inaccurate. Thus blue paper
in the yellow part of the spectrum appeared to Boyle green instead of
black, but this was due to the admixture of green light with the
yellow. He concluded that bodies appear black because they damp the
light so as to reflect very little to the eye, but that the surfaces
of white bodies consist of innumerable little facets which reflect the
light in all directions. In the same year he published some
"Observations on a Diamond, which shines in the Dark;" and an
extensive treatise on "Some Considerations touching the Style of the
Holy Scriptures." Next year appeared several papers from his pen, the
most important being "Occasional Reflections upon Several Subjects,"
the wide scope of which may be gathered from the title. His "New
Experiments and Observations touching Cold" were printed in 1665. In
this paper he discussed the cause of the force exerted by water in
freezing, methods of measuring degrees of cold, the action of
freezing-mixtures, and many other questions. He contended that cold
was probably only privative, and not a positive existence.
Lord Bacon had asserted that the "essential self" of heat was probably
motion and nothing more, and had adduced several experiments and
observations in support of this opinion. In his paper on the
mechanical origin of heat and cold, Boyle maintained that heat was
motion, but motion of the very small particles of bodies, very
intense, and taking place in all directions; and that heat could be
produced by any means whatever by which the particles of bodies could
be agitated. On one occasion he caused two pieces of brass, one convex
and the other concave, to be pressed against each other by a spring,
and then rubbed together in a vacuum by a rotary motion communicated
by a shaft which passed air-tight through the hole in the cover of the
receiver, a little emery being inserted between them. In the second
experiment the brasses became so hot that he "could not endure to hold
[his] hand on either of them." This experiment was intended, like the
rubbing of the blocks of ice in vacuo by Davy, to meet the objection
that the heat developed by friction was due to the action of the air.
The following extract from a paper intended to show that the sense of
touch cannot be relied upon for the estimation of temperature, shows
that Boyle possessed a very clear insight into the question:--"The
account upon which we judge a body to be cold seems to be that we feel
its particles less vehemently agitated than those of our fingers or
other parts of the organ of touching; and, consequently, if the temper
of that organ be changed, the object will appear more or less cold to
us, though itself continue of one and the same temperature." To
determine the expansion of water in freezing, he filled the bulb and
part of the stem of a "bulb tube," or, as it was then generally
called, "a philosophical egg," with water, and applying a
freezing-mixture, at first to the bottom of the bulb, he succeeded in
freezing the water without injury to the glass, and found that 82
volumes of water expanded to 91-1/8 volumes of ice--an expansion of
about 11-1/8 per cent. Probably air-bubbles caused the ice to appear
to have a greater volume than it really possessed, the true expansion
being about nine per cent. of the volume of the water at 4 deg.C. The
expansion of water in freezing he employed in order to compress air to
a greater extent than he had been able otherwise to compress it.
Having nearly filled a tube with water, but left a little air above,
and then having sealed the top of the tube, he froze the water from
the bottom upwards, so that in expanding it compressed the air to
one-tenth of its former volume.
Magnetism and electricity came in for some share of Boyle's attention.
He carried out a number of experiments on magnetic induction, and
found that lodestones, as well as pieces of iron, when heated and
allowed to cool, became magnetized by the induction of the earth. His
later experiments with exhausted receivers were not made with his
first pump, but with a two-barrelled pump, in which the pistons were
connected by a cord passing over a large fixed pulley, so that, when
the receiver was nearly exhausted, the pressure of the air on the
descending piston during the greater part of the stroke nearly
balanced that on the ascending piston. In this respect the pump
differed only from Hawksbee's in having the pulley and cord instead of
the pinion and two racks. It also resembled Hawksbee's pump in having
self-closing valves in the pistons and at the bottom of the cylinders,
which, in this pump, had their open ends at the top. The pistons were
alternately raised and lowered by the feet of the operator, which were
placed in stirrups, of which one was fixed on each piston. The lower
portions of the barrels were filled with water, through which the air
bubbled, and this, occupying the clearance, enabled a much higher
degree of exhaustion to be produced than could be obtained without its
employment.
In 1665 Boyle was nominated Provost of Eton, but declined to accept
the appointment. His "Hydrostatical Paradoxes," published about this
time, contain all the ordinary theorems respecting the pressure of
fluids under the action of gravity demonstrated experimentally.
In 1677 Boyle printed, at his own expense, five hundred copies of the
four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles in the Malayan tongue. This
was but one of his many contributions towards similar objects.
On November 30, 1680, the Royal Society chose Boyle for President. He,
however, declined to accept the appointment, because he had
conscientious objections to taking the oath required of the President
by the charter of the Society.
It appears that very many of Boyle's manuscripts, which were written
in bound books, were taken away, and others mutilated by "corrosive
liquors." In May, 1688, he made this known to his friends, but, though
these losses put him on his guard, he complained afterwards that all
his care and circumspection had not prevented the loss of "six
centuries of matters of fact in one parcel," besides many other
smaller papers. His works, however, which have been published are so
numerous that it would take several pages for the bare enumeration of
their titles, many of them being devoted to medical subjects. The
edition published in London in 1743 comprises nearly three thousand
pages of folio. Boyle always suffered from weak eyes, and in
consequence he declined to revise his proofs. In the advertisement to
the original edition of his works the publisher mentioned this, and at
the same time pleaded his own business engagements as an excuse for
not revising the proofs himself! It was partly on account of the
injury to his manuscripts, and partly through failing health, that in
1689 he set apart two days in the week, during which he declined to
receive visitors, that he might devote himself to his work, and
especially to the reparation of the injured writings. About this time
he succeeded in procuring the repeal of an Act passed in the fifth
year of Henry IV. to the effect "that none from thenceforth should use
to multiply gold or silver, or use the craft of multiplication; and if
any the same do, they should incur the pain of felony." By this repeal
it was made legal to extract gold and silver from ores, or from their
mixtures with other metals, in this country provided that the gold and
silver so procured should be put to no other use than "the increase of
moneys." It is curious that Boyle seems always to have believed in the
possibility of transmuting other metals into gold.
His sister, Lady Ranelagh, died on December 23, 1691, and Boyle
survived her but a few days, for he died on December 30, and his body
was interred near his sister's grave in the chancel of St.
Martin's-in-the-Fields. Dr. Shaw, in his preface to Boyle's works,
writes, "The men of wit and learning have, in all ages, busied
themselves in explaining nature by words; but it is Mr. Boyle alone
who has wholly laid himself out in showing philosophy in action. The
single point he perpetually keeps in view is to render his reader, not
a talkative or a speculative, but an actual and practical philosopher.
Himself sets the example; he made all the experiments he possibly
could upon natural bodies, and communicated them with all desirable
candour and fidelity." The second part of his treatise on "The
Christian Virtuoso," Boyle concluded with a number of aphorisms, of
which the following well represent his views respecting science:--
"I think it becomes Christian philosophers rather to try whether they
can investigate the final causes of things than, without trial, to
take it for granted that they are undiscoverable."
"The book of Nature is a fine and large piece of tapestry rolled up,
which we are not able to see all at once, but must be content to wait
for the discovery of its beauty and symmetry, little by little, as it
gradually comes to be more unfolded or displayed."
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
Among those whose contributions to physics have immortalized their
names in the annals of science, there is none that holds a more
prominent position in the history of the world than Benjamin Franklin.
At one time a journeyman printer, living in obscure lodgings in
London, he became, during the American War of Independence, one of the
most conspicuous figures in Europe, and among Americans his reputation
was probably second to none, General Washington not excepted.
Professor Laboulaye says of Franklin: "No one ever started from a
lower point than the poor apprentice of Boston. No one ever raised
himself higher by his own unaided forces than the inventor of the
lightning-rod. No one has rendered greater service to his country than
the diplomatist who signed the treaty of 1783, and assured the
independence of the United States. Better than the biographies of
Plutarch, this life, so long and so well filled, is a source of
perpetual instruction to all men. Every one can there find counsel and
example."
A great part of the history of his life was written by Franklin
himself, at first for the edification of the members of his own
family, and afterwards at the pressing request of some of his friends
in London and Paris. His autobiography does not, however, comprise
much more than the first fifty years of his life. The first part was
written while he was the guest of the Bishop of St. Asaph, at Twyford;
the second portion at Passy, in the house of M. de Chaumont; and the
last part in Philadelphia, when he was retiring from public life at
the age of eighty-two. The former part of this autobiography was
translated into French, and published in Paris, in 1793, though it is
not known how the manuscript came into the publisher's hands. The
French version was translated into English, and published in England
and America, together with such other of Franklin's works as could be
collected, before the latter part was given to the world by Franklin's
grandson, to whom he had bequeathed his papers, and who first
published them in America in 1817.
For a period of three hundred years at least Franklin's family lived
on a small freehold of about thirty acres, in the village of Ecton, in
Northamptonshire, the eldest son, who inherited the property, being
always brought up to the trade of a smith. Franklin himself "was the
youngest son of the youngest son for five generations back." His
grandfather lived at Ecton till he was too old to follow his business,
when he went to live with his second son, John, who was a dyer at
Banbury. To this business Franklin's father, Josiah, was apprenticed.
The eldest son, Thomas, was brought up a smith, but afterwards became
a solicitor; the other son, Benjamin, was a silk-dyer, and followed
Josiah to America. He was fond of writing poetry and sermons. The
latter he wrote in a shorthand of his own inventing, which he taught
to his nephew and namesake, in order that he might utilize the sermons
if, as was proposed, he became a Presbyterian minister. Franklin's
father, Josiah, took his wife and three children to New England, in
1682, where he practised the trade of a tallow-chandler and
soap-boiler. Franklin was born in Boston on January 6 (O.S.), 1706,
and was the youngest of seventeen children, of whom thirteen grew up
and married.
Benjamin being the youngest of ten sons, his father intended him for
the service of the Church, and sent him to the grammar school when
eight years of age, where he continued only a year, although he made
very rapid progress in the school; for his father concluded that he
could not afford the expense of a college education, and at the end of
the year removed him to a private commercial school. At the age of ten
young Benjamin was taken home to assist in cutting the wicks of
candles, and otherwise to make himself useful in his father's
business. His enterprising character as a boy is shown by the
following story, which is in his own words:--
There was a salt marsh that bounded part of the mill-pond, on
the edge of which, at high-water, we used to stand to fish for
minnows. By much trampling we had made it a mere quagmire. My
proposal was to build a wharf there fit for us to stand upon,
and I showed my comrades a large heap of stones, which were
intended for a new house near the marsh, and which would very
well suit our purpose. Accordingly, in the evening, when the
workmen were gone, I assembled a number of my play-fellows, and
working with them diligently, like so many emmets, sometimes two
or three to a stone, we brought them all away and built our
little wharf. The next morning the workmen were surprised at
missing the stones, which were found in our wharf. Inquiry was
made after the removers; we were discovered and complained of;
several of us were corrected by our fathers; and, though I
pleaded the usefulness of the work, mine convinced me that
nothing was useful which was not honest.
Until twelve years of age Benjamin continued in his father's business,
but as he manifested a great dislike for it, and his parents feared
that he might one day run away to sea, they set about finding some
trade which would be more congenial to his tastes. With this view his
father took him to see various artificers at their work, that he
might observe the tastes of the boy. This experience was very
valuable to him, as it taught him to do many little jobs for himself
when workmen could not readily be procured. During this time Benjamin
spent most of his pocket-money in purchasing books, some of which he
sold when he had read them, in order to buy others. He read through
most of the books in his father's very limited library. These mainly
consisted of works on theological controversy, which Franklin
afterwards considered to have been not very profitable to him.
"There was another bookish lad in the town, John Collins by name, with
whom I was intimately acquainted. We sometimes disputed, and very fond
we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting one another, which
disputatious turn, by the way, is apt to become a very bad habit,
making people often very disagreeable in company by the contradiction
that is necessary to bring it into practice; and thence, besides
souring and spoiling the conversation, is productive of disgusts and
perhaps enmities when you may have occasion for friendship. I had
caught it by reading my father's books of dispute about religion.
Persons of good sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it,
except lawyers, university men, and men of all sorts that have been
bred at Edinburgh."
At length Franklin's fondness for books caused his father to decide to
make him a printer. His brother James had already entered that
business, and had set up in Boston with a new press and types which
he had brought from England. He signed his indentures when only twelve
years old, thereby apprenticing himself to his brother until he should
attain the age of twenty-one. The acquaintance which he formed with
booksellers through the printing business enabled him to borrow a
better class of books than he had been accustomed to, and he
frequently sat up the greater part of the night to read a book which
he had to return in the morning.
While working with his brother, the young apprentice wrote two
ballads, which he printed and sold in the streets of Boston. His
father, however, ridiculed the performance; so he "escaped being a
poet." He adopted at this time a somewhat original method to improve
his prose writing. Meeting with an odd volume of the _Spectator_, he
purchased it and read it "over and over," and wished to imitate the
style. "Making short notes of the sentiment in each sentence," he laid
them by, and afterwards tried to write out the papers without looking
at the original. Then on comparison he discovered his faults and
corrected them. Finding his vocabulary deficient, he turned some of
the tales into verse, then retranslated them into prose, believing
that the attempt to make verses would necessitate a search for several
words of the same meaning. "I also sometimes jumbled my collection of
hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavoured to reduce them
into the best order, before I began to form the full sentence and
complete the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of
my thoughts."
Meeting with a book on vegetarianism, Franklin determined to give the
system a trial. This led to some inconvenience in his brother's
house-keeping, so Franklin proposed to board himself if his brother
would give him half the sum he paid for his board, and out of this he
was able to save a considerable amount for the purpose of buying
books. Moreover, the time required for meals was so short that the
dinner hour afforded considerable leisure for reading. It was on his
journey from Boston to Philadelphia that he first violated vegetarian
principles; for, a large cod having been caught by the sailors, some
small fishes were found in its stomach, whereupon Franklin argued that
if fishes ate one another, there could be no reason against eating
them, so he dined on cod during the rest of the journey.
After reading Xenophon's "Memorabilia," Franklin took up strongly with
the Socratic method of discussion, and became so "artful and expert in
drawing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions, the
consequence of which they did not foresee," that some time afterwards
one of his employers, before answering the most simple question, would
frequently ask what he intended to infer from the answer. This
practice he gradually gave up, retaining only the habit of expressing
his opinions with "modest diffidence."
In 1720 or 1721 James Franklin began to print a newspaper, the _New
England Courant_. To this paper, which he helped to compose and print,
Benjamin became an anonymous contributor. The members of the staff
spoke highly of his contributions, but when the authorship became
known, James appears to have conceived a jealousy of his younger
brother, which ultimately led to their separation. An article in the
paper having offended the Assembly, James was imprisoned for a month
and forbidden to print the paper. He then freed Benjamin from his
indentures, in order that the paper might be published in his name. At
length, some disagreement arising, Benjamin took advantage of the
cancelling of his indentures to quit his brother's service. As he
could get no employment in Boston, he obtained a passage to New York,
whence he was recommended to go to Philadelphia, which he reached
after a very troublesome journey. His whole stock of cash then
consisted of a Dutch dollar and about a shilling's worth of coppers.
The coppers he gave to the boatmen with whom he came across from
Burlington. His first appearance in Philadelphia, about eight o'clock
on a Sunday morning, was certainly striking. A youth between seventeen
and eighteen years of age, dressed in his working clothes, which were
dirty through his journey, with his pockets stuffed out with stockings
and shirts, his aspect was not calculated to command respect.
"Then I walked up the street, gazing about till near the market-house
I met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, and,
inquiring where he got it, I went immediately to the baker's he
directed me to, in Second Street, and ask'd for bisket, intending such
as we had in Boston; but they, it seems, were not made in
Philadelphia. Then I asked for a threepenny loaf, and was told they
had none such. So, not considering or knowing the difference of money,
and the greater cheapness, nor the name of his bread, I bad him give
me three-penny-worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great
puffy rolls. I was surpriz'd at the quantity, but took it, and having
no room in my pockets, walk'd off with a roll under each arm, and
eating the other. Thus I went up Market Street as far as Fourth
Street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future wife's father; when
she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly
did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance. Then I turned and went
down Chestnut Street and part of Walnut Street, eating my roll all the
way, and, coming round, found myself again at Market Street Wharf,
near the boat I came in, to which I went for a draught of the river
water; and, being filled out with one of my rolls, gave the other two
to a woman and her child that came down the river in the boat with us,
and were waiting to go further."
In Philadelphia Franklin obtained an introduction, through a gentleman
he had met at New York, to a printer, named Keimer, who had just set
up business with an old press which he appeared not to know how to
use, and one pair of cases of English type. Here Franklin obtained
employment when the business on hand would permit, and he put the
press in order and worked it. Keimer obtained lodgings for him at the
house of Mr. Read, and, by industry and economical living, Franklin
found himself in easy circumstances. Sir William Keith was then
Governor of Pennsylvania, and hearing of Franklin, he called upon him
at Keimer's printing-office, invited him to take wine at a
neighbouring tavern, and promised to obtain for him the Government
printing if he would set up for himself. It was then arranged that
Franklin should return to Boston by the first ship, in order to see
what help his father would give towards setting him up in business. In
the mean while he was frequently invited to dine at the governor's
house. Notwithstanding Sir William Keith's recommendation, Josiah
Franklin thought his son too young to take the responsibility of a
business, and would only promise to assist him if, when he was
twenty-one, he had himself saved sufficient to purchase most of the
requisite plant. On his return to Philadelphia, he delivered his
father's letter to Sir William Keith, whereon the governor, stating
that he was determined to have a good printer there, promised to find
the means of equipping the printing-office himself, and suggested the
desirability of Franklin's making a journey to England in order to
purchase the plant. He promised letters of introduction to various
persons in England, as well as a letter of credit to furnish the
money for the purchase of the printing-plant. These letters Franklin
was to call for, but there was always some excuse for their not being
ready. At last they were to be sent on board the ship, and Franklin,
having gone on board, awaited the letters. When the governor's
despatches came, they were all put into a bag together, and the
captain promised to let Franklin have his letters before landing. On
opening the bag off Plymouth, there were no letters of the kind
promised, and Franklin was left without introductions and almost
without money, to make his own way in the world. In London he learned
that Governor Keith was well known as a man in whom no dependence
could be placed, and as to his giving a letter of credit, "he had no
credit to give."
A friend of Franklin's, named Ralph, accompanied him from America, and
the two took lodgings together in Little Britain at three shillings
and sixpence per week. Franklin immediately obtained employment at
Palmer's printing-office, in Bartholomew Close; but Ralph, who knew no
trade, but aimed at literature, was unable to get any work. He could
not obtain employment, even among the law stationers as a copying
clerk, so for some time the wages which Franklin earned had to support
the two. At Palmer's Franklin was employed in composing Wollaston's
"Religion of Nature." On this he wrote a short critique, which he
printed. it was entitled "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity,
Pleasure and Pain." The publication of this he afterwards regretted,
but it obtained for him introductions to some literary persons in
London. Subsequently he left Palmer's and obtained work at Watts's
printing-office, where he remained during the rest of his stay in
London. The beer-drinking capabilities of some of his fellow-workmen
excited his astonishment. He says:--
We had an alehouse boy who attended always in the house to
supply the workmen. My companion at the press drank every day a
pint before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and
cheese, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a
pint in the afternoon about six o'clock, and another when he had
done his day's work. I thought it a detestable custom, but it
was necessary, he suppos'd, to drink _strong_ beer, that he
might be _strong_ to labour. I endeavoured to convince him that
the bodily strength afforded by beer could only be in proportion
to the grain or flour of the barley dissolved in the water of
which it was made; that there was more flour in a pennyworth of
bread; and therefore, if he would eat that with a pint of water,
it would give him more strength than a quart of beer. He drank
on, however, and had four or five shillings to pay out of his
wages every Saturday night for that muddling liquor; an expense
I was free from. And thus these poor devils keep themselves
always under.
Afterwards Franklin succeeded in persuading several of the compositors
to give up "their muddling breakfast of beer and bread and cheese,"
for a porringer of hot-water gruel, with pepper, breadcrumbs, and
butter, which they obtained from a neighbouring house at a cost of
three halfpence.
Among Franklin's fellow-passengers from Philadelphia to England was an
American merchant, a Mr. Denham, who had formerly been in business in
Bristol, but failed and compounded with his creditors. He then went to
America, where he soon acquired a fortune, and returned in Franklin's
ship. He invited all his old creditors to dine with him. At the dinner
each guest found under his plate a cheque for the balance which had
been due to him, with interest to date. This gentleman always remained
a firm friend to Franklin, who, during his stay in London, sought his
advice when any important questions arose. When Mr. Denham returned to
Philadelphia with a quantity of merchandise, he offered Franklin an
appointment as clerk, which was afterwards to develop into a
commission agency. The offer was accepted, and, after a voyage of
nearly three months, Franklin reached Philadelphia on October 11,
1726. Here he found Governor Keith had been superseded by Major
Gordon, and, what was of more importance to him, that Miss Read, to
whom he had become engaged before leaving for England, and to whom he
had written only once during his absence, had married. Shortly after
starting in business, Mr. Denham died, and thus left Franklin to
commence life again for himself. Keimer had by this time obtained a
fairly extensive establishment, and employed a number of hands, but
none of them were of much value; and he made overtures to Franklin to
take the management of his printing-office, apparently with the
intention of getting his men taught their business, so that he might
afterwards be able to dispense with the manager. Franklin set the
printing-house in order, started type-founding, made the ink, and,
when necessary, executed engravings. As the other hands improved under
his superintendence, Keimer began to treat his manager less civilly,
and apparently desired to curtail his stipend. At length, through an
outbreak of temper on the part of Keimer, Franklin left, but was
afterwards induced to return in order to prepare copper-plates and a
press for printing paper money for New Jersey.
While working for Keimer, Franklin formed a club, which was destined
to exert considerable influence on American politics. The club met on
Friday evenings, and was called the Junto. It was essentially a
debating society, the subject for each evening's discussion being
proposed at the preceding meeting. One of the rules was that the
existence of the club should remain a secret, and that its members
should be limited to twelve. Afterwards other similar clubs were
formed by its members; but the existence of the Junto was kept a
secret from them. The club lasted for about forty years, and became
the nucleus of the American Philosophical Society, of which Franklin
was the first president. This, and the fact that many of the great
questions that arose previously to the Declaration of Independence
were discussed in the Junto in the first instance, give to the club a
special importance. The following are specimens of subjects discussed
by the club:--
"Is sound an entity or body?"
"How may the phenomena of vapours be explained?"
"Is self-interest the rudder that steers mankind, the universal
monarch to whom all are tributaries?"
"Which is the best form of government? and what was that form which
first prevailed among mankind?"
"Can any one particular form of government suit all mankind?"
"What is the reason that the tides rise higher in the Bay of Fundy
than the Bay of Delaware?"
"Is the emission of paper money safe?"
"What is the reason that men of the greatest knowledge are not the
most happy?"
"How may the possessions of the Lakes be improved to our advantage?"
"Why are tumultuous, uneasy sensations united with our desires?"
"Whether it ought to be the aim of philosophy to eradicate the
passions."
"How may smoky chimneys be best cured?"
"Why does the flame of a candle tend upwards in a spire?"
"Which is least criminal--a bad action joined with a good intention,
or a good action with a bad intention?"
"Is it consistent with the principles of liberty in a free government
to punish a man as a libeller when he speaks the truth?"
On leaving Keimer's, Franklin went into partnership with one of his
fellow-workmen, Hugh Meredith, whose father found the necessary
capital, and a printing-office was started which soon excelled its two
rivals in Philadelphia. Franklin's industry attracted the attention of
the townsfolk, and inspired the merchants with confidence in the
prospects of the new concern. Keimer started a newspaper, which he had
not the ability to carry on; Franklin purchased it from him for a
trifle, remodelled it, and continued it in a very spirited manner
under the title of the _Pennsylvania Gazette_. His political articles
soon attracted the attention of the principal men of the state; the
number of subscribers increased rapidly, and the paper became a source
of considerable profit. Soon after, the printing for the House of
Representatives came into the hands of the firm. Meredith never took
to the business, and was seldom sober, and at length was bought out by
his partner, on July 14, 1730. The discussion in the Junto on paper
currency induced Franklin to publish a paper entitled "The Nature and
Necessity of a Paper Currency." This was a prominent subject before
the House, but the introduction of paper money was opposed by the
capitalists. They were unable, however, to answer Franklin's
arguments; the point was carried in the House, and Franklin was
employed to print the money. The amount of paper money in Pennsylvania
in 1739 amounted to L80,000; during the war it rose to more than
L350,000.
"In order to secure my credit and character as a tradesman, I took
care not only to be in _reality_ industrious and frugal, but to avoid
all appearances to the contrary. I drest plainly; I was seen at no
places of idle diversion. I never went out a-fishing or shooting; a
book, indeed, sometimes debauch'd me from my work, but that was
seldom, snug, and gave no scandal; and, to show that I was not above
my business, I sometimes brought home the paper I purchas'd at the
stores thro' the streets on a wheelbarrow. Thus being esteem'd an
industrious, thriving young man, and paying duly for what I bought,
the merchants who imported stationery solicited my custom; others
proposed supplying me with books, and I went on swimmingly. In the
mean time, Keimer's credit and business declining daily, he was at
last forc'd to sell his printing-house to satisfy his creditors."
On September 1, 1730, Franklin married his former _fiancee_, whose
previous husband had left her and was reported to have died in the
West Indies. The marriage was a very happy one, and continued over
forty years, Mrs. Franklin living until the end of 1774. Industry and
frugality reigned in the household of the young printer. Mrs. Franklin
not only managed the house, but assisted in the business, folding and
stitching pamphlets, and in other ways making herself useful. The
first part of Franklin's autobiography concludes with an account of
the foundation of the first subscription library. By the co-operation
of the members of the Junto, fifty subscribers were obtained, who each
paid in the first instance forty shillings, and afterwards ten
shillings per annum. "We afterwards obtained a charter, the company
being increased to one hundred. This was the mother of all the North
American subscription libraries, now so numerous. It is become a great
thing itself, and continually increasing. These libraries have
improved the general conversation of the Americans, made the common
tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other
countries, and perhaps have contributed in some degree to the stand so
generally made throughout the colonies in defence of their
privileges."
Ten years ago this library contained between seventy and eighty
thousand volumes.
Franklin's success in business was attributed by him largely to his
early training. "My circumstances, however, grew daily easier. My
original habits of frugality continuing, and my father having, among
his instructions to me when a boy, frequently repeated a proverb of
Solomon, 'Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand
before kings; he shall not stand before mean men,' I from thence
considered industry as a means of obtaining wealth and distinction,
which encourag'd me, tho' I did not think that I should ever
literally _stand before kings_, which, however, has since happened;
for I have stood before _five_, and even had the honour of sitting
down with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner."
After his marriage, Franklin conceived the idea of obtaining moral
perfection. He was not altogether satisfied with the result, but
thought his method worthy of imitation. Assuming that he possessed
complete knowledge of what was right or wrong, he saw no reason why he
should not always act in accordance therewith. His principle was to
devote his attention to one virtue only at first for a week, at the
end of which time he expected the practice of that virtue to have
become a habit. He then added another virtue to his list, and devoted
his attention to the same for the next week, and so on, until he had
exhausted his list of virtues. He then commenced again at the
beginning. As his moral code comprised thirteen virtues, it was
possible to go through the complete curriculum four times in a year.
Afterwards he occupied a year in going once through the list, and
subsequently employed several years in one course. A little book was
ruled, with a column for each day and a line for each virtue, and in
this a mark was made for every failure which could be remembered on
examination at the end of the day. It is easy to believe his
statement: "I am surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults
than I had imagined; but I had the satisfaction of seeing them
diminish."
"This my little book had for its motto these lines from Addison's
'Cato':--
"'Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us
(And that there is, all Nature cries aloud
Thro' all her work), He must delight in virtue;
And that which He delights in must be happy.'
"Another from Cicero:--
"'O vitae Philosophia dux! O virtutum indagatrix expultrixque vitiorum!
Unus dies ex praeceptis tuis actus, peccanti immortalitati est
anteponendus.'
"Another from the Proverbs of Solomon, speaking of wisdom and virtue:--
"'Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and
honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are
peace.'
"And conceiving God to be the fountain of wisdom, I thought it right
and necessary to solicit His assistance for obtaining it; to this end
I formed the following little prayer, which was prefixed to my tables
of examination, for daily use:--
"'O powerful Goodness! bountiful Father! merciful Guide! increase in
me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen my
resolutions to perform what that wisdom dictates. Accept my kind
offices to Thy other children as the only return in my power for Thy
continual favours to me.'
"I used also sometimes a little prayer which I took from Thomson's
Poems, viz.:--
"'Father of light and life, Thou Good Supreme!
Oh teach me what is good; teach me Thyself!
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,
From every low pursuit; and fill my soul
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure;
Sacred, substantial, never-failing bliss!'"
The senses in which Franklin's thirteen virtues were to be understood
were explained by short precepts which followed them in his list. The
list was as follows:--
"1. TEMPERANCE.
"Eat not to dulness; drink not to elevation.
"2. SILENCE.
"Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling
conversation.
"3. ORDER.
"Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business
have its time.
"4. RESOLUTION.
"Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you
resolve.
"5. FRUGALITY.
"Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; _i.e._ waste
nothing.
"6. INDUSTRY.
"Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all
unnecessary actions.
"7. SINCERITY.
"Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and, if you
speak, speak accordingly.
"8. JUSTICE.
"Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your
duty.
"9. MODERATION.
"Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they
deserve.
"10. CLEANLINESS.
"Tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes, or habitation.
"11. TRANQUILLITY.
"Be not disturbed at trifles, or accidents common or unavoidable.
"12. CHASTITY.
"13. HUMILITY.
"Imitate Jesus and Socrates."
The last of these was added to the list at the suggestion of a Quaker
friend. Franklin claims to have acquired a good deal of the
_appearance_ of it, but concluded that in reality there was no passion
so hard to subdue as _pride_. "For even if I could conceive that I had
completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility."
The virtue which gave him most trouble, however, was order, and this
he never acquired.
In 1732 appeared the first copy of "Poor Richard's Almanack." This was
prepared, printed, and published by Franklin for about twenty-five
years in succession, and nearly ten thousand copies were sold
annually. Besides the usual astronomical information, it contained a
collection of entertaining anecdotes, verses, jests, etc., while the
"little spaces that occurred between the remarkable events in the
calendar" were filled with proverbial sayings, inculcating industry
and frugality as helps to virtue. These sayings were collected and
prefixed to the almanack of 1757, whence they were copied into the
American newspapers, and afterwards reprinted as a broad-sheet in
England and in France.
In 1733 Franklin commenced studying modern languages, and acquired
sufficient knowledge of French, Italian, and Spanish to be able to
read books in those languages. In 1736 he was chosen Clerk to the
General Assembly, an office to which he was annually re-elected until
he became a member of the Assembly about 1750. There was one member
who, on the second occasion of his election, made a long speech
against him. Franklin determined to secure the friendship of this
member. Accordingly he wrote to him to request the loan of a very
scarce and curious book which was in his library. The book was lent
and returned in about a week, with a note of thanks. The member ever
after manifested a readiness to serve Franklin, and they became great
friends--"Another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned,
which says, '_He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready
to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged_.' And it
shows how much more profitable it is prudently to remove, than to
resent, return, and continue inimical proceedings."
In 1737 Franklin was appointed Deputy-Postmaster-General for
Pennsylvania. He was afterwards made Postmaster-General of the
Colonies. He read a paper in the Junto on the organization of the City
watch, and the propriety of rating the inhabitants on the value of
their premises in order to support the same. The subject was also
discussed in the other clubs which had sprung from the Junto, and thus
the way was prepared for the law which a few years afterwards carried
Franklin's proposals into effect. His next scheme was the formation of
a fire brigade, in which he met with his usual success, and other
clubs followed, until most of the men of property in the city were
members of one club or another. The original brigade, known as the
Union Fire Company, was formed December 7, 1736. It was in active
service in 1791.
Franklin founded the American Philosophical Society in 1743. The
head-quarters of the society were fixed in Philadelphia, where it was
arranged that there should always be at least seven members, viz. a
physician, a botanist, a mathematician, a chemist, a mechanician, a
geographer, and a general natural philosopher, besides a president,
treasurer, and secretary. The other members might be resident in any
part of America. Correspondence was to be kept up with the Royal
Society of London and the Dublin Society, and abstracts of the
communications were to be sent quarterly to all the members. Franklin
became the first secretary.
Spain, having been for some years at war with England, was joined at
length by France. This threatened danger to the American colonies, as
France then held Canada, and no organization for their defence
existed. Franklin published a pamphlet entitled "Plain Truth," setting
forth the unarmed condition of the colonies, and recommending the
formation of a volunteer force for defensive purposes. The pamphlet
excited much attention. A public meeting was held and addressed by
Franklin; at this meeting twelve hundred joined the association. At
length the number of members enrolled exceeded ten thousand. These all
provided themselves with arms, formed regiments and companies, elected
their own officers, and attended once a week for military drill.
Franklin was elected colonel of the Philadelphia Regiment, but
declined the appointment, and served as a private soldier. The
provision of war material was a difficulty with the Assembly, which
consisted largely of Quakers, who, though they appeared privately to
be willing that the country should be put in a state of defence,
hesitated to vote in opposition to their peace principles. Hence it
was that, when the Government of New England asked a grant of
gunpowder from Pennsylvania, the Assembly voted L3000 "for the
purchasing of bread, flour, wheat, or _other grain_." Pebble-powder
was not then in use. When it was proposed to devote L60, which was a
balance in the hands of the Union Fire Company, as a contribution
towards the erection of a battery below the town, Franklin suggested
that it should be proposed that a fire-engine be purchased with the
money, and that the committee should "buy a great gun, which is
certainly a _fire-engine_."
The "Pennsylvania fireplace" was invented in 1742. A patent was
offered to Franklin by the Governor of Pennsylvania, but he declined
it on the principle "_that, as we enjoy great advantages from the
inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve
others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and
generously_." An ironmonger in London made slight alterations, which
were not improvements, in the design, and took out a patent for the
fireplace, whereby he made a "small fortune." Franklin never contested
the patent, "having no desire of profiting by patents himself," and
"hating disputes." This fireplace was designed to burn wood, but,
unlike the German stoves, it was completely open in front, though
enclosed at the sides and top. An air-chamber was formed in the middle
of the stove, so arranged that, while the burning wood was in contact
with the front of the chamber, the flame passed above and behind it on
its way to the flue. Through this chamber a constant current of air
passed, entering the room heated, but not contaminated, by the
products of combustion. In this way the stove furnished a constant
supply of fresh warm air to the room, while it possessed all the
advantages of an open fireplace. Subsequently Franklin contrived a
special fireplace for the combustion of coal. In the scientific
thought which he devoted to the requirements of the domestic
economist, as in very many other particulars, Franklin strongly
reminds us of Count Rumford.
The next important enterprise which Franklin undertook, partly through
the medium of the Junto, was to establish an academy which soon
developed into the University of Philadelphia. The members of the club
having taken up the subject, the next step was to enlist the sympathy
of a wider constituency, and this Franklin effected, in his usual way,
by the publication of a pamphlet. He then set on foot a subscription,
the payments to extend over five years, and thereby obtained about
L5000. A house was taken and schools opened in 1749. The classes soon
became too large for the house, and the trustees of the academy then
took over a large building, or "tabernacle," which had been erected
for George Whitefield when he was preaching in Philadelphia. The hall
was divided into stories, and at a very small expense adapted to the
requirements of the classes. Franklin, having taken a partner in his
printing business, took the oversight of the work. Afterwards the
funds were increased by English subscriptions, by a grant from the
Assembly, and by gifts of land from the proprietaries; and thus was
established the University of Philadelphia.
Having practically retired from business, Franklin intended to devote
himself to philosophical studies, having commenced his electrical
researches some time before in conjunction with the other members of
the Library Company. Public business, however, crowded upon him. He
was elected a member of the Assembly, a councillor and afterwards an
alderman of the city, and by the governor was made a justice of the
peace. As a member of the Assembly, he was largely concerned in
providing the means for the erection of a hospital, and in arranging
for the paving and cleansing of the streets of the city. In 1753 he
was appointed, in conjunction with Mr. Hunter, Postmaster-General of
America. The post-office of the colonies had previously been conducted
at a loss. In a few years, under Franklin's management, it not only
paid the stipends of himself and Mr. Hunter, but yielded a
considerable revenue to the Crown. But it was not only in the conduct
of public business that Franklin's merits were recognized. By this
time he had secured his reputation as an electrician, and both Yale
College and Cambridge University (New England) conferred on him the
honorary degree of Master of Arts. In the same year that he was made
Postmaster-General of America he was awarded the Copley Medal and
elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, the usual fees being
remitted in his case.
Before his election as member, Franklin had for several years held the
appointment of Clerk to the Assembly, and he used to relieve the
dulness of the debates by amusing himself in the construction of magic
circles and squares, and "acquired such a knack at it" that he could
"fill the cells of any magic square of reasonable size with a series
of numbers as fast as" he "could write them." Many years afterwards
Mr. Logan showed Franklin a French folio volume filled with magic
squares, and afterwards a magic "square of 16," which Mr. Logan
thought must have been a work of great labour, though it possessed
only the common properties of making 2056 in every row, horizontal,
vertical, and diagonal. During the evening Franklin made the square
shown on the opposite page. "This I sent to our friend the next
morning, who, after some days, sent it back in a letter, with these
words: 'I return to thee thy astonishing and most stupendous piece of
the magical square, in which----;' but the compliment is too
extravagant, and therefore, for his sake as well as my own, I ought
not to repeat it. Nor is it necessary; for I make no question that you
will readily allow this square of 16 to be the most magically magical
of any magic square ever made by any magician."
The square has the following properties:--Every straight row of
sixteen numbers, whether vertical, horizontal, or diagonal, makes
2056.
Every bent row of sixteen numbers, as shown by the diagonal lines in
the figure, makes 2056.
If a square hole be cut in a piece of paper, so as to show through it
just sixteen of the little squares, and the paper be laid on the magic
square, then, wherever the paper is placed, the sum of the sixteen
numbers visible through the hole will be 2056.
[Illustration:
200 217 232 249 8 25 40 57 72 89 104 121 136 153 168 185
58 39 26 7 250 231 218 199 186 167 154 135 122 103 90 71
198 219 230 251 6 27 38 59 70 91 102 123 134 155 166 187
60 37 28 5 252 229 220 197 188 165 156 133 124 101 92 69
201 216 233 248 9 24 41 56 73 88 105 120 137 152 169 184
55 42 23 10 247 234 215 202 183 170 151 138 119 106 87 74
203 214 235 246 11 22 43 54 75 86 107 118 139 150 171 182
53 44 21 12 245 236 213 204 181 172 149 140 117 108 85 76
205 212 237 244 13 20 45 52 77 84 109 116 141 148 173 180
51 46 19 14 243 238 211 206 179 174 147 142 115 110 83 78
207 210 239 242 15 18 47 50 79 82 111 114 143 146 175 178
49 48 17 16 241 240 209 208 177 176 145 144 113 112 81 80
196 221 228 253 4 29 36 61 68 93 100 125 132 157 164 189
62 35 30 3 254 227 222 195 190 163 158 131 126 99 94 67
194 223 226 255 2 31 34 63 66 95 98 127 130 159 162 191
64 33 32 1 256 225 224 193 192 161 160 129 128 97 96 65
]
In 1754 war with France appeared to be again imminent, and a Congress
of Commissioners from the several colonies was arranged for. Of
course, Franklin was one of the representatives of Pennsylvania, and
was also one of the members who independently drew up a plan for the
union of all the colonies under one government, for defensive and
other general purposes, and his was the plan finally approved by
Congress for the union, though it was not accepted by the Assemblies
or by the English Government, being regarded by the former as having
too much of the _prerogative_ in it, by the latter as being too
_democratic_. Franklin wrote respecting this scheme: "The different
and contrary reasons of dislike to my plan makes me suspect that it
was really the true medium; and I am still of opinion that it would
have been happy for both sides of the water if it had been adopted. The
colonies, so united, would have been sufficiently strong to have
defended themselves; there would then have been no need of troops from
England; of course, the subsequent pretence for taxing America, and
the bloody contest it occasioned, would have been avoided."
With this war against France began the struggle of the Assemblies and
the proprietaries on the question of taxing the estates of the latter.
The governors received strict instructions to approve no bills for the
raising of money for the purposes of defence, unless the estates of
the proprietaries were specially exempted from the tax. The Assembly
of Pennsylvania resolved to contribute L10,000 to assist the
Government of Massachusetts Bay in an attack upon Crown Point, but the
governor refused his assent to the bill for raising the money. At this
juncture Franklin proposed a scheme by which the money could be raised
without the consent of the governor. His plan was successful, and the
difficulty was surmounted for the time, but was destined to recur
again and again during the progress of the war.
The British Government, not approving of the scheme of union, whereby
the colonies might have defended themselves, sent General Braddock to
Virginia, with two regiments of regular troops. On their arrival they
found it impossible to obtain waggons for the conveyance of their
baggage, and the general commissioned Franklin to provide them in
Pennsylvania. By giving his private bond for their safety, Franklin
succeeded in engaging one hundred and fifty four-horse waggons, and
two hundred and fifty-nine pack-horses. His modest warnings against
Indian ambuscades were disregarded by the general, the little army was
cut to pieces, and the remainder took to flight, sacrificing the whole
of their baggage and stores. Franklin was never fully recouped by the
British Government for the payments he had to make on account of
provisions which the general had instructed him to procure for the use
of the army.
After this, Franklin appeared for some time in a purely military
capacity, having yielded to the governor's persuasions to undertake
the defence of the north-western frontier, to raise troops, and to
build a line of forts. After building and manning three wooden forts,
he was recalled by the Assembly, whose relations with the governor had
become more and more strained. At length the Assembly determined to
send Franklin to England, to present a petition to the king respecting
the conduct of the proprietaries, viz. Richard and Thomas Penn, the
successors of William Penn. A bill had been framed by the House to
provide L60,000 for the king's use in the defence of the province.
This the governor refused to pass, because the proprietary estates
were not exempted from the taxation. The petition to the king was
drawn up, and Franklin's baggage was on board the ship which was to
convey him to England, when General Lord Loudon endeavoured to make an
arrangement between the parties. The governor pleaded his
instructions, and the bond he had given for carrying them out, and the
Assembly was prevailed upon to reconstruct the bill in accordance with
the governor's wishes. This was done under protest; in the mean time
Franklin's ship had sailed, carrying his baggage. After a great deal
of unnecessary delay on account of the general's inability to decide
upon the despatch of the packet-boats, Franklin at last got away from
New York, and, having narrowly escaped shipwreck off Falmouth, he
reached London on July 27, 1757.
On arriving in London, Franklin was introduced to Lord Granville, who
told him that the king's instructions were laws in the colonies.
Franklin replied that he had always understood that the Assemblies
made the laws, which then only required the king's consent. "I
recollected that, about twenty years before, a clause in a bill
brought into Parliament by the Ministry had proposed to make the
king's instructions laws in the colonies, but the clause was thrown
out by the Commons, for which we adored them as our friends and the
friends of liberty, till, by their conduct towards us in 1765, it
seem'd that they had refus'd that point of sovereignty to the king
only that they might reserve it for themselves." A meeting was shortly
afterwards arranged between Franklin and the proprietaries at Mr. T.
Penn's house; but their views were so discordant that, after some
discussion, Franklin was requested to give them in writing the heads
of his complaints, and the whole question was submitted to the opinion
of the attorney- and solicitor-general. It was nearly a year before
this opinion was given. The proprietaries then communicated directly
with the Assembly, but in the mean while Governor Denny had consented
to a bill for raising L100,000 for the king's use, in which it was
provided that the proprietary estates should be taxed with the others.
When this bill reached England, the proprietaries determined to oppose
its receiving the royal assent. Franklin engaged counsel on behalf of
the Assembly, and on his undertaking that the assessment should be
fairly made between the estates of the proprietaries and others, the
bill was allowed to pass.
By this time Franklin's career as a scientific investigator was
practically at an end. Political business almost completely occupied
his attention, and in one sense the diplomatist replaced the
philosopher. His public scientific career was of short duration. It
may be said to have begun in 1746, when Mr. Peter Collinson presented
an "electrical tube" to the Library Company in Philadelphia, which was
some time after followed by a present of a complete set of electrical
apparatus from the proprietaries, but by 1755 Franklin's time was so
much taken up by public business that there was very little
opportunity for experimental work. Throughout his life he frequently
expressed in his letters his strong desire to return to philosophy,
but the opportunity never came, and when, at the age of eighty-two, he
was liberated from public duty, his strength was insufficient to
enable him to complete even his autobiography.
It was on a visit to Boston in 1746 that Franklin met with Dr. Spence,
a Scotchman, who exhibited some electrical experiments. Soon after his
return to Philadelphia the tube arrived from Mr. Collinson, and
Franklin acquired considerable dexterity in its use. His house was
continually full of visitors, who came to see the experiments, and, to
relieve the pressure upon his time, he had a number of similar tubes
blown at the glass-house, and these he distributed to his friends, so
that there were soon a number of "performers" in Philadelphia. One of
these was Mr. Kinnersley, who, having no other employment, was induced
by Franklin to become an itinerant lecturer. Franklin drew up a scheme
for the lectures, and Kinnersley obtained several well-constructed
instruments from Franklin's rough and home-made models. Kinnersley and
Franklin appear to have worked together a good deal, and when
Kinnersley was travelling on his lecture tour, each communicated to
the other the results of his experiments. Franklin sent his papers to
Mr. Collinson, who presented them to the Royal Society, but they were
not at first judged worthy of a place in the "Transactions." The paper
on the identity of lightning and electricity was sent to Dr. Mitchell,
who read it before the Royal Society, when it "was laughed at by the
connoisseurs." The papers were subsequently published in a pamphlet,
but did not at first receive much attention in England. On the
recommendation of Count de Buffon, they were translated into French.
The Abbe Nollet, who had previously published a theory of his own
respecting electricity, wrote and published a volume of letters
defending his theory, and denying the accuracy of some of Franklin's
experimental results. To these letters Franklin made no reply, but
they were answered by M. le Roy. M. de Lor undertook to repeat in
Paris all Franklin's experiments, and they were performed before the
king and court. Not content with the experiments which Franklin had
actually performed, he tried those which had been only suggested, and
so was the first to obtain electricity from the clouds by means of the
pointed rod. This experiment produced a great sensation everywhere,
and was afterwards repeated by Franklin at Philadelphia. Franklin's
papers were translated into Italian, German, and Latin; his theory met
with all but universal acceptance, and great surprise was expressed
that his papers had excited so little interest in England. Dr. Watson
then drew up a summary of all Franklin's papers, and this was
published in the "Philosophical Transactions;" Mr. Canton verified the
experiment of procuring electricity from the clouds by means of a
pointed rod, and the Royal Society awarded to Franklin the Copley
Medal for 1753, which was conveyed to him by Governor Denny.
We must now give a short account of Franklin's contributions to
electrical science.
"The first is the wonderful effect of pointed bodies, both in _drawing
off_ and _throwing off_ the electrical fire."
It will be observed that this statement is made in the language of the
_one_-fluid theory, of which Franklin may be regarded as the author.
This theory will be again referred to presently. Franklin electrified
a cannon-ball so that it repelled a cork. On bringing near it the
point of a bodkin, the repulsion disappeared. A blunt body had to be
brought near enough for a spark to pass in order to produce the same
effect. "To prove that the electrical fire is _drawn off_ by the
point, if you take the blade of the bodkin out of the wooden handle,
and fix it in a stick of sealing-wax, and then present it at the
distance aforesaid, or if you bring it very near, no such effect
follows; but sliding one finger along the wax till you touch the
blade, and the ball flies to the shot immediately. If you present the
point in the dark, you will see, sometimes at a foot distance or more,
a light gather upon it like that of a fire-fly or glow-worm; the less
sharp the point, the nearer you must bring it to observe the light;
and at whatever distance you see the light, you may draw off the
electrical fire, and destroy the repelling."
By laying a needle upon the shot, Franklin showed "that points will
_throw off_ as well as _draw off_ the electrical fire." A candle-flame
was found to be equally efficient with a sharp point in drawing off
the electricity from a charged conductor. The effect of the
candle-flame Franklin accounted for by supposing the particles
separated from the candle to be first "attracted and then repelled,
carrying off the electric matter with them." The effect of points is a
direct consequence of the law of electrical repulsion. When a
conductor is electrified, the density of the electricity is greatest
where the curvature is greatest. Thus, if a number of spheres are
electrified from the same source, the density of the electricity on
the different spheres will vary inversely as their diameters. The
force tending to drive the electricity off a conductor is everywhere
proportional to the density, and hence in the case of the spheres will
be greatest for the smallest sphere. On this principle, the density of
electricity on a perfectly sharp point, if such could exist, on a
charged conductor, would be infinite and the force tending to drive it
off would be infinite also. Hence a moderately sharp point is
sufficient to dissipate the electricity from a highly charged
conductor, or to neutralize it if the point is connected to earth and
brought near the conductor so as to be electrified by induction.
Franklin next found that, if the person rubbing the electric tube
stood upon a cake of resin, and the person taking the charge from the
tube stood also on an insulating stand, a stronger spark would pass
between these two persons than between either of them and the earth;
that, after the spark had passed, neither person was electrified,
though each had appeared electrified before. These experiments
suggested the idea of _positive_ and _negative_ electrification; and
Franklin, regarding the electric fluid as corresponding to positive
electrification, remarked that "you may circulate it as Mr. Watson has
shown; you may also accumulate or subtract it upon or from any body,
as you connect that body with the rubber or with the receiver, the
common stock being cut off." Thus Franklin regarded electricity as a
fluid, of which everything in its normal state possesses a certain
amount; that, by appropriate means, some of the fluid may be removed
from one body and given to another. The former is then electrified
negatively, the latter positively, and all processes by which bodies
are electrified consist in the removal of electricity from one body or
system and giving it to another. He regarded the electric fluid as
repelling itself and attracting matter. AEpinus afterwards added the
supposition that matter, when devoid of electricity, is
self-repulsive, and thus completed the "one-fluid theory," and
accounted for the repulsion observed between negatively electrified
bodies.
It had been usual to employ water for the interior armatures of Leyden
jars, or phials, as they were then generally called. Franklin
substituted granulated lead for the water, thereby improving the
insulation by keeping the glass dry. With these phials he contrived
many ingenious experiments, and imitated lightning by discharging them
through the gilding of a mirror or the gold lines on the cover of a
book. He found that the inner and outer armatures of his Leyden jars
were oppositely electrified. "Here we have a bottle containing at the
same time a _plenum_ of electrical fire and a _vacuum_ of the same
fire; and yet the equilibrium cannot be restored between them but by a
communication _without_! though the plenum presses violently to
expand, and the hungry vacuum seems to attract as violently in order
to be filled." The charging of Leyden jars by cascade, that is by
insulating all the jars except the last, connecting the outer armature
of the first with the inner armature of the second, and so on
throughout the series, was well understood by Franklin, and he knew
too that by this method the extent to which each jar could be charged
from a given source varied inversely as the number of jars. The
discharge of the Leyden jar by alternate contacts was also carried out
by him; and he found that, if the jar is first placed on an insulating
stand, it may be held by the hook (or knob) without discharging it.
Franklin, in fact, appears to have known almost as much about the
Leyden jar as is known to-day. He found that, when the armatures were
removed from a jar, no discharge would pass between them, but when a
fresh pair of armatures were supplied to the glass, the jar could be
discharged. "We are of opinion that there is really no more electrical
fire in the phial after what is called its _charging_ than before, nor
less after its _discharging_; excepting only the small spark that
might be given to and taken from the non-electric matter, if separated
from the bottle, which spark may not be equal to a five-hundredth part
of what is called the explosion.
"The phial will not suffer what is called a _charging_ unless as much
fire can go out of it one way as is thrown in by another.
"When a bottle is charged in the common way, its _inside_ and
_outside_ surfaces stand ready, the one to give fire by the hook, the
other to receive it by the coating; the one is full and ready to throw
out, the other empty and extremely hungry; yet, as the first will not
_give out_ unless the other can at the same time _receive in_, so
neither will the latter receive in unless the first can at the same
time give out. When both can be done at once, it is done with
inconceivable quickness and violence."
Then follows a very beautiful illustration of the condition of the
glass in the Leyden jar.
"So a straight spring (though the comparison does not agree in every
particular), when forcibly bent, must, to restore itself, contract
that side which in the bending was extended, and extend that which was
contracted; if either of these two operations be hindered, the other
cannot be done.
"Glass, in like manner, has, within its substance, always the same
quantity of electrical fire, and that a very great quantity in
proportion to the mass of the glass, as shall be shown hereafter.
"This quantity proportioned to the glass it strongly and obstinately
retains, and will have neither more nor less, though it will suffer a
change to be made in its parts and situation; _i.e._ we may take away
part of it from one of the sides, provided we throw an equal quantity
into the other."
"The whole force of the bottle, and power of giving a shock, is in the
GLASS ITSELF; the non-electrics in contact with the two surfaces
serving only to _give_ and _receive_ to and from the several parts of
the glass, that is, to give on one side and take away from the other."
All these statements were, as far as possible, fully substantiated by
experiment. They are perfectly consistent with the views held by
Cavendish and by Clerk Maxwell, and, though the phraseology is not
that of the modern text-books, the statements themselves can hardly be
improved upon to-day.
One of Franklin's early contrivances was an electro-motor, which was
driven by the alternate electrical attraction and repulsion of leaden
bullets which discharged Leyden jars by alternate contacts. Franklin
concluded his account of these experiments as follows:--
Chagrined a little that we have been hitherto able to produce
nothing in this way of use to mankind, and the hot weather
coming on, when electrical experiments are not so agreeable, it
is proposed to put an end to them for this season, somewhat
humorously, in a party of pleasure, on the banks of Skuylkil.
Spirits, at the same time, are to be fired by a spark sent from
side to side through the river, without any other conductor than
the water--an experiment which we some time since performed, to
the amazement of many. A turkey is to be killed for our dinner
by the _electrical shock_, and roasted by the _electrical jack_
before a fire kindled by the _electrified bottle_, when the
healths of all the famous electricians in England, Holland,
France, and Germany, are to be drunk in _electrified bumpers_,
under the discharge of guns from the _electrical battery_.
Franklin's electrical battery consisted of eleven large panes of glass
coated on each side with sheet lead. The electrified bumper was a thin
tumbler nearly filled with wine and electrified as a Leyden jar, so
as to give a shock through the lips.
Franklin's theory of the manner in which thunder-clouds become
electrified he found to be not consistent with his subsequent
experiments. In the paper which he wrote explaining this theory,
however, he shows some knowledge of the effects of bringing conductors
into contact in diminishing their capacity. He states that two
gun-barrels electrified equally and then united, will give a spark at
a greater distance than one alone. Hence he asks, "To what a great
distance may ten thousand acres of electrified cloud strike and give
its fire, and how loud must be that crack?
"An electrical spark, drawn from an irregular body at some distance,
is scarcely ever straight, but shows crooked and waving in the air. So
do the flashes of lightning, the clouds being very irregular bodies.
"As electrified clouds pass over a country, high hills and high trees,
lofty towers, spires, masts of ships, chimneys, etc., as so many
prominences and points, draw the electrical fire, and the whole cloud
discharges there.
"Dangerous, therefore, is it to take shelter under a tree during a
thunder-gust. It has been fatal to many, both men and beasts.
"It is safer to be in the open field for another reason. When the
clothes are wet, if a flash in its way to the ground should strike
your head, it may run in the water over the surface of your body;
whereas, if your clothes were dry, it would go through the body,
because the blood and other humours, containing so much water, are
more ready conductors.
"Hence a wet rat cannot be killed by the exploding electrical bottle
[a quart jar], while a dry rat may."
In the above quotations we see, so to speak, the germ of the
lightning-rod. This was developed in a letter addressed to Mr.
Collinson, and dated July 29, 1750. The following quotations will give
an idea of its contents:--
"The electrical matter consists of particles extremely subtile, since
it can permeate common matter, even the densest metals, with such ease
and freedom as not to receive any perceptible resistance.[1]
[Footnote 1: Franklin was aware of the resistance of conductors (see
p. 96).]
"If any one should doubt whether the electrical matter passes through
the substance of bodies or only over and along their surfaces, a shock
from an electrified large glass jar, taken through his own body, will
probably convince him.
"Common matter is a kind of sponge to the electrical fluid.
"We know that the electrical fluid is _in_ common matter, because we
can pump it _out_ by the globe or tube. We know that common matter has
near as much as it can contain, because when we add a little more to
any portion of it, the additional quantity does not enter, but forms
an electrical atmosphere."
To illustrate the action of a lightning-conductor on a thunder-cloud,
Franklin suspended from the ceiling a pair of scales by a twisted
string so that the beam revolved. Upon the floor, in such a position
that the scale-pans passed over it, he placed a blunt steel punch. The
scale-pans were suspended by silk threads, and one of them
electrified. When this passed over the punch it dipped towards it, and
sometimes discharged into it by a spark. When a needle was placed with
its point uppermost by the side of the punch, no attraction was
apparent, for the needle discharged the scale-pan before it came near.
"Now, if the fire of electricity and that of lightning be the same, as
I have endeavoured to show at large in a former paper ... these scales
may represent electrified clouds.... The horizontal motion of the
scales over the floor may represent the motion of the clouds over the
earth, and the erect iron punch a hill or high building; and then we
see how electrified clouds, passing over hills or high buildings at
too great a height to strike, may be attracted lower till within their
striking distance; and lastly, if a needle fixed on the punch, with
its point upright, or even on the floor below the punch, will draw the
fire from the scale silently at a much greater than the striking
distance, and so prevent its descending towards the punch; or if in
its course it would have come nigh enough to strike, yet, being first
deprived of its fire, it cannot, and the punch is thereby secured from
its stroke;--I say, if these things are so, may not the knowledge of
this power of points be of use to mankind, in preserving houses,
churches, ships, etc., from the stroke of the lightning, by directing
us to fix, on the highest parts of those edifices, upright rods of
iron made sharp as a needle, and gilt to prevent rusting, and from the
foot of those rods a wire down the outside of the building into the
ground, or down round one of the shrouds of a ship, and down her side
till it reaches the water? Would not these pointed rods probably draw
the electrical fire silently out of a cloud before it came nigh enough
to strike, and thereby secure us from that most sudden and terrible
mischief?"
Franklin goes on to suggest the possibility of obtaining electricity
from the clouds by means of a pointed rod fixed on the top of a high
building and insulated. Such a rod he afterwards erected in his own
house. Another rod connected to the earth he brought within six inches
of it, and, attaching a small bell to each rod, he suspended a little
ball or clapper by a silk thread, so that it could strike either bell
when attracted to it. On the approach of a thunder-cloud, and
occasionally when no clouds were near, the bells would ring,
indicating that the rod had become strongly electrified. On one
occasion Franklin was disturbed by a loud noise, and, coming out of
his bedroom, he found an apparently continuous and very luminous
discharge taking place between the bells, forming a stream of fire
about as large as a pencil.
A very pretty experiment of Franklin's was that of the _golden fish_.
A small piece of gold-leaf is cut into a quadrilateral having one of
its angles about 150 deg., the opposite angle about 30 deg., and the other two
right angles. "If you take it by the tail, and hold it at a foot or
greater horizontal distance from the prime conductor, it will, when
let go, fly to it with a brisk but wavering motion, like that of an
eel through the water; it will then take place under the prime
conductor, at perhaps a quarter or half an inch distance, and keep a
continual shaking of its tail like a fish, so that it seems animated.
Turn its tail towards the prime conductor, and then it flies to your
finger, and seems to nibble it. And if you hold a [pewter] plate under
it at six or eight inches distance, and cease turning the globe, when
the electrical atmosphere of the conductor grows small it will descend
to the plate and swim back again several times with the same fish-like
motion; greatly to the entertainment of spectators. By a little
practice in blunting or sharpening the heads or tails of these
figures, you may make them take place as desired, nearer or further
from the electrified plate."
By the discharge of the battery, Franklin succeeded in melting and
volatilizing gold-leaf, thin strips of tinfoil, etc. His views on the
nature of light are best given in his own words.
"I am not satisfied with the doctrine that supposes particles of
matter called light, continually driven off from the sun's surface,
with a swiftness so prodigious! Must not the smallest particle
conceivable have, with such a motion, a force exceeding that of a
twenty-four pounder discharged from a cannon?... Yet these particles,
with this amazing motion, will not drive before them, or remove, the
least and lightest dust they meet with.
"May not all the phenomena of light be more conveniently solved by
supposing universal space filled with a subtile elastic fluid, which,
when at rest, is not visible, but whose vibrations affect that fine
sense in the eye, as those of air do the grosser organs of the ear? We
do not, in the case of sound, imagine that any sonorous particles are
thrown off from a bell, for instance, and fly in straight lines to the
ear; why must we believe that luminous particles leave the sun and
proceed to the eye? Some diamonds, if rubbed, shine in the dark
without losing any part of their matter. I can make an electrical
spark as big as the flame of a candle, much brighter, and therefore
visible further; yet this is without fuel; and I am persuaded no part
of the electrical fluid flies off in such case to distant places, but
all goes directly and is to be found in the place to which I destine
it. May not different degrees of the vibration of the abovementioned
universal medium occasion the appearances of different colours? I
think the electric fluid is always the same; yet I find that weaker
and stronger sparks differ in apparent colour, some white, blue,
purple, red: the strongest, white; weak ones, red. Thus different
degrees of vibration given to the air produce the seven different
sounds in music, analogous to the seven colours, yet the medium, air,
is the same."
Mr. Kinnersley having called Franklin's attention to the fact that a
sulphur globe when rubbed produced electrification of an opposite kind
from that produced by a glass globe, Franklin repeated the experiment,
and noticed that the discharge from the end of a wire connected with
the conductor was different in the two cases, being "long, large, and
much diverging when the glass globe is used, and makes a snapping (or
rattling) noise; but when the sulphur one is used it is short, small,
and makes a hissing noise; and just the reverse of both happens when
you hold the same wire in your hand and the globes are worked
alternately.... When the brush is long, large, and much diverging, the
body to which it is joined seems to be throwing the fire out; and when
the contrary appears it seems to be drinking in."
On October 19, 1752, Franklin wrote to Mr. Peter Collinson as
follows:--
As frequent mention is made in public papers from Europe of the
success of the Philadelphia experiment for drawing the electric
fire from clouds by means of pointed rods of iron erected on
high buildings, etc., it may be agreeable to the curious to be
informed that the same experiment has succeeded in
Philadelphia, though made in a different and more easy manner,
which is as follows:--
Make a small cross of two light strips of cedar, the arms so
long as to reach to the four corners of a large thin silk
handkerchief when extended. Tie the corners of the handkerchief
to the extremities of the cross, so you have the body of a kite;
which, being properly accommodated with a tail, loop, and
string, will rise in the air like those made of paper; but this
being of silk is fitter to bear the wet and wind of a
thunder-gust without tearing. To the top of the upright stick of
the cross is to be fixed a very sharp-pointed wire, rising a
foot or more above the wood. To the end of the twine, next the
hand, is to be tied a silk ribbon, and, where the silk and twine
join, a key may be fastened. This kite is to be raised when a
thunder-gust appears to be coming on, and the person who holds
the string must stand within a door or window, or under some
cover so that the silk ribbon may not be wet, and care must be
taken that the twine does not touch the frame of the door or
window. As soon as any of the thunder-clouds come over the kite,
the pointed wire will draw the electric fire from them, and the
kite, with all the twine, will be electrified, and the loose
filaments of the twine will stand out every way, and be
attracted by an approaching finger. And when the rain has wetted
the kite and twine so that it can conduct the electric fire
freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the key on
the approach of your knuckle. At this key the phial may be
charged, and from electric fire there obtained spirits may be
kindled, and all the other electric experiments be performed
which are usually done by the help of a rubbed glass globe or
tube, and thereby the sameness of the electric matter with that
of lightning completely demonstrated.
Having, in September, 1752, erected the iron rod and bells in his own
house, as previously mentioned, Franklin succeeded, in April, 1753, in
charging a Leyden jar from the rod, and found its charge was negative.
On June 6, however, he obtained a positive charge from a cloud. The
results of his observations led him to the conclusion "_That the
clouds of a thunder-gust are most commonly in a negative state of
electricity, but sometimes in a positive state._"
In order to illustrate a theory respecting the electrification of
clouds, Franklin placed a silver can on a wine-glass. Inside the can
was placed a considerable length of chain, which could be drawn out by
means of a silk thread. He electrified the can from a Leyden jar until
it would receive no more electricity. Then raising the silk thread, he
gradually drew the chain out of the can, and found that the greater
the length of chain drawn out the greater was the charge which the jar
would give to the system, and as the chain was raised, spark after
spark passed from the jar to the silver can, thus showing that the
capacity of the system was increased by increasing the amount of
chain exposed.
In 1755 Franklin observed the effects of induction; for, having
attached to his prime conductor a tassel made of damp threads and
electrified the conductor, he found that the threads repelled each
other and stood out. Bringing an excited glass tube near the other end
of the conductor, the threads were found to diverge more, "because the
atmosphere of the prime conductor is pressed by the atmosphere of the
excited tube, and driven towards the end where the threads are, by
which each thread acquires more atmosphere." When the excited tube was
brought near the threads, they closed a little, "because the
atmosphere of the glass tube repels their atmospheres, and drives part
of them back on the prime conductor." A number of other experiments
illustrating electrical induction were also carried out.
In writing to Dr. Living, of Charlestown, under date March 18, 1755,
Franklin gave the following extracts of the minutes of his experiments
as explaining the train of thought which led him to attempt to obtain
electricity from the clouds:--
"_November 7, 1749._ Electrical fluid agrees with lightning in these
particulars: 1. Giving light. 2. Colour of the light. 3. Crooked
direction. 4. Swift motion. 5. Being conducted by metals. 6. Crack or
noise in exploding. 7. Subsisting in water or ice. 8. Rending bodies
it passes through. 9. Destroying animals. 10. Melting metals. 11.
Firing inflammable substances. 12. Sulphureous smell. The electric
fluid is attracted by points. We do not know whether this property is
in lightning. But since they agree in all the particulars wherein we
can already compare them, is it not probable they agree likewise in
this? Let the experiment be made."
Another experiment very important in its bearing on the theory of
electricity was described by Franklin in the same letter to Dr.
Living. It was afterwards repeated in a much more complete form by
Cavendish, who deduced from it the great law that electrical repulsion
varies inversely as the square of the distance between the charges.
The same experiment was repeated in other forms by Faraday, who had no
means of knowing what Cavendish had done. Franklin writes:--
I electrified a silver fruit-can on an electric stand, and then
lowered into it a cork ball of about an inch in diameter,
hanging by a silk string, till the cork touched the bottom of
the can. The cork was not attracted to the inside of the can, as
it would have been to the outside, and though it touched the
bottom, yet, when drawn out, it was not found to be electrified
by that touch, as it would have been by touching the outside.
The fact is singular. You require the reason? I do not know it.
Perhaps you may discover it, and then you will be so good as to
communicate it to me. I find a frank acknowledgment of one's
ignorance is not only the easiest way to get rid of a
difficulty, but the likeliest way to obtain information, and
therefore I practise it. I think it is an honest policy.
A note appended to this letter runs as follows:--
Mr. F. has since thought that, possibly, the mutual repulsion of
the inner opposite sides of the electrized can may prevent the
accumulating an electric atmosphere upon them, and occasion it
to stand chiefly on the outside. But recommends it to the
further examination of the curious.
The explanation in this note is the correct one, and from the fact
that in the case of a completely closed hollow conductor the charge is
not only _chiefly_ but _wholly_ on the outside, the law of inverse
squares above referred to follows as a mathematical consequence.
On writing to M. Dalibard, of Paris, on June 29, 1755, Franklin
complained that, though he always (except once) assigned to
lightning-rods the alternative duty of either _preventing_ a stroke or
of _conducting_ the lightning with safety to the ground, yet in Europe
attention was paid only to the _prevention_ of the stroke, which was
only a _part_ of the duty assigned to the conductors. This is followed
by the description of the effect of a stroke upon a church-steeple at
Newbury, in New England. The spire was split all to pieces, so that
nothing remained above the bell. The lightning then passed down a wire
to the clock, then down the pendulum, without injury to the building.
"From the end of the pendulum, down quite to the ground, the building
was exceedingly rent and damaged, and some stones in the
foundation-wall torn out and thrown to the distance of twenty or
thirty feet." The pendulum-rod was uninjured, but the fine wire
leading from the bell to the clock was vaporized except for about two
inches at each end.
Mr. James Alexander, of New York, having proposed to Franklin that the
velocity of the electric discharge might be measured by discharging a
jar through a long circuit of river-water, Franklin, in his reply,
explained that such an experiment, if successful, would not determine
the actual velocity of electricity in the conductor. He compared the
electricity in conductors to an incompressible fluid, so that when a
little additional fluid is injected at one end of a conductor, an
equal amount must be extruded at the other end--his view apparently
being identical with that of Maxwell, who held that all electric
displacements must take place _in closed circuits_.
"Suppose a tube of any length open at both ends.... If the tube be
filled with water, and I inject an additional inch of water at one
end, I force out an equal quantity at the other in the very same
instant.
"And the water forced out at one end of the tube is not the very same
water that was forced in at the other end at the same time; it was
only one motion at the same time.
"The long wire, made use of in the experiment to discover the velocity
of the electric fluid, is itself filled with what we call its natural
quantity of that fluid, before the hook of the Leyden bottle is
applied at one end of it.
"The outside of the bottle being at the time of such application in
contact with the other end of the wire, the whole quantity of electric
fluid contained in the wire is, probably, put in motion at once.
"For at the instant the hook, connected with the inside of the bottle,
_gives out_, the coating or outside of the bottle _draws in_, a
portion of that fluid....
"So that this experiment only shows the extreme facility with which
the electric fluid moves in metal; it can never determine the
velocity.
"And, therefore, the proposed experiment (though well imagined and
very ingenious) of sending the spark round through a vast length of
space, by the waters of Susquehannah, or Potowmack, and Ohio, would
not afford the satisfaction desired, though we could be sure that the
motion of the electric fluid would be in that tract, and not
underground in the wet earth by the shortest way."
In his investigations of the source of electricity in thunder-clouds,
Franklin tried an experiment which has been frequently repeated with
various modifications. Having insulated a large brass plate which had
been previously heated, he sprinkled water upon it, in order, if
possible, to obtain electricity by the evaporation of the water, but
no trace of electrification could be detected.
During his visit to England, Franklin wrote many letters to Mr.
Kinnersley and others on philosophical questions, but they consisted
mainly of accounts of the work done by other experimenters in England,
his public business occupying too much of his attention to allow him
to conduct investigations for himself. In one of his letters, speaking
of Lord Charles Cavendish, he says:--
It were to be wished that this noble philosopher would
communicate more of his experiments to the world, as he makes
many, and with great accuracy.
When the controversy between the relative merits of points and knobs
for the terminals of lightning-conductors arose, Franklin wrote to Mr.
Kinnersley:--
Here are some electricians that recommend knobs instead of
points on the upper end of the rods, from a supposition that the
points invite the stroke. It is true that points draw
electricity at greater distances in the gradual silent way; but
knobs will draw at the greatest distance a stroke. There is an
experiment which will settle this. Take a crooked wire of the
thickness of a quill, and of such a length as that, one end of
it being applied to the lower part of a charged bottle, the
upper may be brought near the ball on the top of the wire that
is in the bottle. Let one end of this wire be furnished with a
knob, and the other may be gradually tapered to a fine point.
When the point is presented to discharge the bottle, it must be
brought much nearer before it will receive the stroke than the
knob requires to be. Points, besides, tend to repel the
fragments of an electrical cloud; knobs draw them nearer. An
experiment, which I believe I have shown you, of cotton fleece
hanging from an electrized body, shows this clearly when a point
or a knob is presented under it.
The following quotation from Franklin's paper on the method of
securing buildings and persons from the effects of lightning is worthy
of attention, for of late years a good deal of money has been wasted
in providing insulators for lightning-rods. A few years ago the vicar
and churchwardens of a Lincolnshire parish were strongly urged to go
to the expense of insulating the conductor throughout the whole height
of the very lofty tower and spire of their parish church. Happily they
were wise enough to send the lightning-rod man about his business. But
this is not the only case which has come under the writer's notice,
showing that there is still a widespread impression that
lightning-conductors should be carefully insulated. Franklin says:--
"The rod may be fastened to the wall, chimney, etc., with staples of
iron. The lightning will not leave the rod (a good conductor) to pass
into the wall (a bad conductor) through these staples. It would
rather, if any were in the wall, pass out of it into the rod, to get
more readily by that conductor into the earth."[2]
[Footnote 2: See p. 141.]
The conditions to be secured in a lightning-conductor are, firstly, a
sharp point projecting above the highest part of the building, and
gilded to prevent corrosion; secondly, metallic continuity from the
point to the lower end of the conductor; and, thirdly, a good
earth-contact. The last can frequently be secured by soldering the
conductor to iron water-pipes underground. Where these are not
available, a copper plate, two or three feet square, imbedded in clay
or other damp earth, will serve the purpose. The method of securing a
building which is erected on granite or other foundation affording no
good earth-connection, will be referred to in a subsequent
biographical sketch.
The controversy of points _versus_ knobs was again revived in London
when Franklin was in Paris, and the War of Independence had begun.
Franklin was consulted on the subject, the question having arisen in
connection with the conductor at the palace. His reply was
characteristic.
"As to my writing anything on the subject, which you seem to desire, I
think it not necessary, especially as I have nothing to add to what I
have already said upon it in a paper read to the committee who ordered
the conductors at Purfleet, which paper is printed in the last French
edition of my writings.
"I have never entered into any controversy in defence of my
philosophical opinions. I leave them to take their chance in the
world. If they are _right_, truth and experience will support them; if
_wrong_, they ought to be refuted and rejected. Disputes are apt to
sour one's temper and disturb one's quiet. I have no private interest
in the reception of my inventions by the world, having never made, nor
proposed to make, the least profit by any of them. The king's changing
his _pointed_ conductors for _blunt_ ones is, therefore, a matter of
small importance to me. If I had a wish about it, it would be that he
had rejected them altogether as ineffectual. For it is only since he
thought himself and family safe from the thunder of Heaven, that he
dared to use his own thunder in destroying his innocent subjects."
The paper referred to was read before "the committee appointed to
consider the erecting conductors to secure the magazines at Purfleet,"
on August 27, 1772. It described a variety of experiments clearly
demonstrating the effect of points in discharging a conductor. This
was a committee of the Royal Society, to whom the question had been
referred on account of Dr. Wilson's recommendation of a blunt
conductor. The committee decided in favour of Franklin's view, and
when, in 1777, the question was again raised and again referred to a
committee of the Royal Society, the decision of the former committee
was confirmed, "conceiving that the experiments and reasons made and
alleged to the contrary by Mr. Wilson are inconclusive."
Though Franklin's scientific reputation rests mainly on his electrical
researches, he did not leave other branches of science untouched.
Besides his work on atmospheric electricity, he devoted a great deal
of thought to meteorology, especially to the vortical motion of
waterspouts. The Gulf-stream received a share of his attention. His
improvements in fireplaces have already been noticed; the cure of
smoky chimneys was the subject of a long paper addressed to Dr.
Ingenhousz, and of some other letters. One of his experiments on the
absorption of radiant energy has been deservedly remembered.
"My experiment was this: I took a number of little square pieces of
broad-cloth from a tailor's pattern-card, of various colours. There
were black, deep blue, lighter blue, green, purple, red, yellow,
white, and other colours or shades of colours. I laid them all out
upon the snow in a bright, sun-shiny morning. In a few hours (I cannot
now be exact as to the time) the black, being warmed most by the sun,
was sunk so low as to be below the stroke of the sun's rays; the dark
blue almost as low, the lighter blue not quite so much as the dark,
the other colours less as they were lighter; and the quite white
remained on the surface of the snow, not having entered it at all.
"What signifies philosophy that does not apply to some use? May we not
learn from hence that black clothes are not so fit to wear in a hot,
sunny climate or season, as white ones?"
Franklin knew much about electricity, but his knowledge of human
nature was deeper still. This appears in all his transactions. His
political economy was, perhaps, not always sound, but his judgment of
men was seldom at fault.
"Finally, there seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire
wealth. The first is by _war_, as the Romans did, in plundering their
conquered neighbour: this is _robbery_. The second by _commerce_,
which is generally _cheating_. The third by _agriculture_, the only
_honest way_, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown
into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle wrought by the hand of
God in his favour, as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous
industry."
When Franklin reached London in 1757 he took up his abode with Mrs.
Margaret Stevenson, in Craven Street, Strand. For Mrs. Stevenson and
her daughter Mary, then a young lady of eighteen, he acquired a
sincere affection, which continued throughout their lives. Miss
Stevenson spent much of her time with an aunt in the country, and some
of Franklin's letters to her respecting the conduct of her "higher
education" are among the most interesting of his writings. Miss
Stevenson treated him as a father, and consulted him on every question
of importance in her life. When she was a widow and Franklin eighty
years of age, he urged upon her to come to Philadelphia, for the sake
of the better prospects which the new country offered her boys. In
coming to England, Franklin brought with him his son William, who
entered the Middle Temple, but he left behind his only daughter,
Sarah, in charge of her mother. To his wife and daughter he
frequently sent presents from London, and his letters to Mrs. Franklin
give a pretty full account of all his doings while in England. During
his visit he received the honorary degrees of D.C.L. from the
University of Oxford, and LL.D. from that of Edinburgh. At Cambridge
he was sumptuously entertained. In August, 1762, he started again for
America, and reached Philadelphia on November 1, after an absence of
five years. His son William had shortly before been appointed Governor
of New Jersey. From this time William Franklin became very much the
servant of the proprietaries and of the English Government, but no
offer of patronage produced any effect on the father.
Franklin's stay in America was of short duration, but while there he
was mainly instrumental in quelling an insurrection in Pennsylvania.
He made a tour of inspection through the northern colonies in the
summer of 1763, to regulate the post-offices. The disorder just
referred to in the province caused the governor, as well as the
Assembly, to determine on the formation of a militia. A committee, of
which Franklin was a member, drew up the necessary bill. The governor
claimed the sole power of appointing officers, and required that
trials should be by court-martial, some offences being punishable with
death. The Assembly refused to agree to these considerations. The ill
feeling was increased by the governor insisting on taxing all
proprietary lands at the same rate as uncultivated land belonging to
other persons, whether the proprietary lands were cultivated or not.
The Assembly, before adjourning, expressed an opinion that peace and
happiness would not be secured until the government was lodged
directly in the Crown. When the Assembly again met, petitions to the
king came in from more than three thousand inhabitants. In the mean
while the British Ministry had proposed the Stamp Act, which was
similar in principle to the English Stamp Act, which requires that all
agreements, receipts, bills of exchange, marriage and birth
certificates, and all other legal documents should be provided with an
inland revenue stamp of a particular value, in order that they might
be valid. As soon as the Assembly was convened, it determined to send
Franklin to England, to take charge of a petition for a change of
government. The merchants subscribed L1100 towards his expenses in a
few hours, and in twelve days he was on his journey, being accompanied
to the ship, a distance of sixteen miles, by a cavalcade of three
hundred of his friends, and in thirty days he reached London. Arrived
in London, he at once took up his abode in his old lodgings with Mrs.
Stevenson. He was a master of satire, equalled only by Swift, and
during the quarrels which preceded the War of Independence, as well as
during the war, he made good use of his powers in this respect.
Articles appeared in some of the English papers tending to raise an
alarm respecting the competition of the colonies with English
manufacturers. Franklin's contribution to the discussion was a
caricature of the English press writers.
"It is objected by superficial readers, who yet pretend to some
knowledge of those countries, that such establishments [manufactories
for woollen goods, etc.] are not only improbable, but impossible, for
that their sheep have but little wool, not in the whole sufficient for
a pair of stockings a year to each inhabitant; that, from the
universal dearness of labour among them, the working of iron and other
materials, except in a few coarse instances, is impracticable to any
advantage.
"Dear sir, do not let us suffer ourselves to be amused with such
groundless objections. The very tails of the American sheep are so
laden with wool that each has a little car or waggon on four little
wheels to support and keep it from trailing on the ground. Would they
caulk their ships, would they even litter their horses with wool, if
it were not both plenty and cheap? And what signifies the dearness of
labour, when an English shilling passes for five and twenty? Their
engaging three hundred silk throwsters here in one week for New York
was treated as a fable, because, forsooth, they have 'no silk there to
throw!' Those who make this objection perhaps do not know that, at the
same time, the agents for the King of Spain were at Quebec, to
contract for one thousand pieces of cannon to be made there for the
fortification of Mexico, and at New York engaging the usual supply of
woollen floor-carpets for their West India houses. Other agents from
the Emperor of China were at Boston, treating about an exchange of raw
silk for wool, to be carried in Chinese junks through the Straits of
Magellan.
"And yet all this is as certainly true as the account said to be from
Quebec in all the papers of last week, that the inhabitants of Canada
are making preparations for a cod and whale fishery this summer in the
upper Lakes. Ignorant people may object that the upper Lakes are
fresh, and that cod and whales are salt-water fish; but let them know,
sir, that cod, like other fish when attacked by their enemies, fly
into any water where they can be safest; that whales, when they have a
mind to eat cod, pursue them wherever they fly; and that the grand
leap of the whale in the chase up the Falls of Niagara is esteemed, by
all who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature."
One of Franklin's chief objects in coming to England was to prevent
the passing of Mr. Grenville's bill, previously referred to as the
Stamp Act. The colonists urged that they had always been liberal in
their votes, whenever money was required by the Crown, and that
taxation and representation must, in accordance with the British
constitution, go hand-in-hand, so that the English Parliament had no
right to raise taxes in America, so long as the colonists were
unrepresented in Parliament. "Had Mr. Grenville, instead of that act,
applied to the king in Council for such requisitional letters [_i.e._
requests to the Assemblies for voluntary grants], to be circulated by
the Secretary of State, I am sure he would have obtained more money
from the colonies by their voluntary grants than he himself expected
from the sale of stamps. But he chose compulsion rather than
persuasion, and would not receive from their good will what he thought
he could obtain without it." The Stamp Act was passed, stamps were
printed, distributors were appointed, but the colonists would have
nothing to do with the stamps. The distributors were compelled to
resign their commissions, and the captains of vessels were forbidden
to land the stamped paper. The cost of printing and distributing
amounted to L12,000; the whole return was about L1500, from Canada and
the West Indies.
The passing of the Stamp Act was soon followed by a change of
Ministry, when the question again came before Parliament. Franklin
submitted to a long examination before a Committee of the whole House.
The feeling prevalent in America respecting the Stamp Act may be
inferred from some of his answers.
"31. _Q._ Do you think the people of America would submit to pay the
stamp duty if it was moderated?
"_A._ No, never, unless compelled by force of arms.
"36. _Q._ What was the temper of America towards Great Britain before
the year 1763?[3]
[Footnote 3: The date of the Sugar Act.]
"_A._ The best in the world. They submitted willingly to the
government of the Crown, and paid, in their courts, obedience to the
Acts of Parliament. Numerous as the people are in the several old
provinces, they cost you nothing in forts, citadels, garrisons, or
armies to keep them in subjection. They were governed by this country
at the expense only of a little pen, ink, and paper; they were led by
a thread. They had not only a respect, but an affection, for Great
Britain--for its laws, its customs and manners, and even a fondness
for its fashions, that greatly increased the commerce. Natives of
Britain were always treated with particular regard; to be an
_Old-Englandman_ was, of itself, a character of some respect, and gave
a kind of rank among us.
"37. _Q._ And what is their temper now?
"_A._ Oh, very much altered.
"50. _Q._ Was it an opinion in America before 1763 that the Parliament
had no right to lay taxes and duties there?
"_A._ I never heard any objection to the right of laying duties to
regulate commerce; but a right to lay internal taxes was never
supposed to be in Parliament, as we are not represented there.
"59. _Q._ You say the colonies have always submitted to external
taxes, and object to the right of Parliament only in laying internal
taxes; now, can you show that there is any kind of difference between
the two taxes to the colony on which they may be laid?
"_A._ I think the difference is very great. An _external_ tax is a
duty laid on commodities imported; that duty is added to the first
cost and other charges on the commodity, and, when it is offered to
sale, makes a part of the price. If the people do not like it at that
price, they refuse it; they are not obliged to pay it. But an
_internal_ tax is forced upon the people without their consent, if not
laid by their own representatives. The Stamp Act says we shall have no
commerce, make no exchange of property with each other, neither
purchase, nor grant, nor recover debts; we shall neither marry nor
make our wills, unless we pay such and such sums; and thus it is
intended to extort our money from us, or ruin us by the consequences
of refusing to pay it.
"61. _Q._ Don't you think cloth from England absolutely necessary to
them?
"_A._ No, by no means absolutely necessary; with industry and good
management they may very well supply themselves with all they want.
"62. _Q._ Will it not take a long time to establish that manufacture
among them? and must they not in the mean while suffer greatly?
"_A._ I think not. They have made a surprising progress already. And I
am of opinion that, before their old clothes are worn out, they will
have new ones of their own making.
"84. _Q._ If the Act is not repealed, what do you think will be the
consequence?
"_A._ A total loss of the respect and affection the people of America
bear to this country, and of all the commerce that depends on that
respect and affection.
"85. _Q._ How can the commerce be affected?
"_A._ You will find that, if the Act is not repealed, they will take a
very little of your manufactures in a short time.
"86. _Q._ Is it in their power to do without them?
"_A._ I think they may very well do without them.
"87. _Q._ Is it their interest not to take them?
"_A._ The goods they take from Britain are either necessaries, mere
conveniences, or superfluities. The first, as cloth, etc., with a
little industry they can make at home; the second they can do without
till they are able to provide them among themselves; and the last,
which are much the greatest part, they will strike off immediately.
They are mere articles of fashion, purchased and consumed because the
fashion in a respected country; but will now be detested and rejected.
The people have already struck off, by general agreement, the use of
all goods fashionable in mournings, and many thousand pounds' worth
are sent back as unsaleable.
"173. _Q._ What used to be the pride of the Americans?
"_A._ To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain.
"174. _Q._ What is now their pride?
"_A._ To wear their old clothes over again till they can make new
ones."
The month following Franklin's examination, the repeal of the Stamp
Act received the royal assent. Thereupon Franklin sent his wife and
daughter new dresses, and a number of other little luxuries (or toilet
necessaries).
In 1767 Franklin visited Paris. In the same year his daughter married
Mr. Richard Bache. Though Parliament had repealed the Stamp Act, it
nevertheless insisted on its right to tax the colonies. The Duty Act
was scarcely less objectionable than its predecessor. On Franklin's
return from the Continent, he heard of the retaliatory measures of the
Boston people, who had assembled in town-meetings, formally resolved
to encourage home manufactures, to abandon superfluities, and, after a
certain time, to give up the use of some articles of foreign
manufacture. These _associations_ afterwards became very general in
the colonies, so that in one year the importations by the colonists of
New York fell from L482,000 to L74,000, and in Pennsylvania from
L432,000 to L119,000.
The effect of the Duty Act was to encourage the Dutch and other
nations to smuggle tea and probably other India produce into America.
The exclusion from the American markets of tea sent from England
placed the East India Company in great difficulties; for while they
were unable to meet their bills, they had in stock two million pounds'
worth of tea and other goods. The balance of the revenue collected
under the Duty Act, after paying salaries, etc., amounted to only L85
for the year, and for this a fleet had to be maintained, to guard the
fifteen hundred miles of American coast; while the fall in East India
Stock deprived the revenue of L400,000 per annum, which the East India
Company would otherwise have paid. At length a licence was granted to
the East India Company to carry tea into America, duty free. This, of
course, excluded all other merchants from the American tea-trade. A
quantity of tea sent by the East India Company to Boston was destroyed
by the people. The British Government then blockaded the port. This
soon led to open hostilities. Franklin worked hard to effect a
reconciliation. He drew up a scheme, setting forth the conditions
under which he conceived a reconciliation might be brought about, and
discussed it fully with Mr. Daniel Barclay and Dr. Fothergill. This
scheme was shown to Lord Howe, and afterwards brought before the
Ministry, but was rejected. Other plans were considered, and Franklin
offered to pay for the tea which had been destroyed at Boston. All his
negotiations were, however, fruitless. At last he addressed a memorial
to the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State, complaining of the
blockade of Boston, which had then continued for nine months, and had
"during every week of its continuance done damage to that town, equal
to what was suffered there by the India Company;" and claiming
reparation for such injury beyond the value of the tea which had been
destroyed. The memorial also complained of the exclusion of the
colonists from the Newfoundland fisheries, for which reparation would
one day be required. This memorial was returned to Franklin by Mr.
Walpole, and Franklin shortly afterwards returned to Philadelphia.
During this visit to England he had lost his wife, who died on
December 19, 1774; and his friend Miss Stevenson had married and been
left a widow.
In April, 1768, Franklin was appointed Agent for Georgia, in the
following year for New Jersey, and in 1770 for Massachusetts, so that
he was then the representative in England of four colonies, with an
income of L1200 per annum.
In 1771 he spent three weeks at Twyford, with the Bishop of St. Asaph,
who remained a fast friend of Franklin's until his death. In 1772 he
was nominated by the King of France as Foreign Associate of the
Academy of Sciences.
During his negotiations with the British Government Franklin wrote two
satirical pieces, setting forth the treatment which the American
colonists were receiving. The first was entitled "Rules for Reducing a
Great Empire to a Small One," the rules being precisely those which,
in Franklin's opinion, had been followed by the British Government in
its dealings with America. The other was "An Edict by the King of
Prussia," in which the king claimed the right of taxing the British
nation; of forbidding English manufacture, and compelling Englishmen
to purchase Prussian goods; of transporting prisoners to Britain, and
generally of exercising all such controls over the English people as
had been claimed over America by various Acts of the English
Parliament, on the ground that England was originally colonized by
emigrants from Prussia.
Before Franklin reached America, the War of Independence, though not
formally declared, had fairly begun. He was appointed a member of the
second Continental Congress, and one of a committee of three to confer
with General Washington respecting the support and regulation of the
Continental Army. This latter office necessitated his spending some
time in the camp. On October 3, 1775, he wrote to Priestley:--
Tell our dear good friend, Dr. Price, who sometimes has his
doubts and despondencies about our firmness, that America is
determined and unanimous; a very few Tories and placemen
excepted, who will probably soon export themselves. Britain, at
the expense of three millions, has killed a hundred and fifty
Yankees this campaign, which is L20,000 a head; and at Bunker's
Hill she gained a mile of ground, half of which she lost again
by our taking the post on Ploughed Hill. During the same time
sixty thousand children have been born in America. From these
_data_ his mathematical head will easily calculate the time and
expense necessary to kill us all and conquer our whole
territory.
In 1776 Franklin, then seventy years old, was appointed one of three
Commissioners to visit Canada, in order, if possible, to promote a
union between it and the States. Finding that only one Canadian in
five hundred could read, and that the state of feeling in Canada was
fatal to the success of the Commissioners, they returned, and Franklin
suggested that the next Commission sent to Canada should consist of
schoolmasters. On the 4th of July Franklin took part in the signing of
the Declaration of Independence. When the document was about to be
signed, Mr. Hancock remarked, "We must be unanimous; there must be no
pulling different ways; we must all hang together." Franklin replied,
"Yes, we must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all
hang separately."
In the autumn of 1776 Franklin was unanimously chosen a Special
Commissioner to the French Court. He took with him his two grandsons,
William Temple Franklin and Benjamin Franklin Bache, and leaving
Marcus Hook on October 28, crossed the Atlantic in a sloop of sixteen
guns. In Paris he met with an enthusiastic reception. M. de Chaumont
placed at his disposal his house at Passy, then about a mile from
Paris, but now within the city. Here he resided for nine years, being
a constant visitor at the French Court, and certainly one of the most
conspicuous figures in Paris. He was obliged to serve in many
capacities, and was very much burdened with work. Not only were there
his duties as Commissioner at the French Court, but he was also made
Admiralty Judge and Financial Agent, so that all the coupons for the
payment of interest on the money borrowed for the prosecution of the
war, as well as all financial negotiations, either with the French
Government or contractors, had to pass through his hands. Perhaps the
most unpleasant part of his work was his continued applications to the
French Court for monetary advances. The French Government, as is well
known, warmly espoused the cause of the Americans, and to the utmost
of its ability assisted them with money, material, and men. Franklin
was worried a good deal by applications from French officers for
introductions to General Washington, that they might obtain employment
in the American Army. At last he framed a model letter of
recommendation, which may be useful to many in this country in the
present day. It was as follows:--
SIR,
The bearer of this, who is going to America, presses me to give
him a letter of recommendation, though I know nothing of him,
not even his name. This may seem extraordinary, but I assure you
it is not uncommon here. Sometimes, indeed, one unknown person
brings another equally unknown, to recommend him; and sometimes
they recommend one another! As to this gentleman, I must refer
you to himself for his character and merits, with which he is
certainly better acquainted than I can possibly be. I recommend
him, however, to those civilities which every stranger, of whom
one knows no harm, has a right to; and I request you will do him
all the good offices and show him all the favour that, on
further acquaintance, you shall find him to deserve.
"I have the honour to be," etc.
Captain Wickes, of the _Refusal_, having taken about a hundred British
seamen prisoners, Franklin and Silas Deane, one of the other
Commissioners, wrote to Lord Stormont, the British ambassador,
respecting an exchange. Receiving no answer, they wrote again, and
ventured to complain of the treatment which the American prisoners
were receiving in the English prisons, and in being compelled to fight
against their own countrymen. To this communication Lord Stormont
replied:--
The king's ambassador receives no applications from rebels,
unless they come to implore his Majesty's mercy.
To this the Commissioners rejoined:--
In answer to a letter, which concerns some of the most material
interests of humanity, and of the two nations, Great Britain and
the United States of America, now at war, we received the
enclosed _indecent_ paper, as coming from your Lordship, which
we return for your Lordship's more mature consideration.
At first the British Government, regarding the Americans as rebels,
did not treat their prisoners as prisoners of war, but threatened to
try them for high treason. Their sufferings in the English prisons
were very great. Mr. David Hartley did much to relieve them, and
Franklin transmitted money for the purpose. When a treaty had been
formed between France and the States, and France had engaged in the
war, and when fortune began to turn in favour of the united armies,
the American prisoners received better treatment from the English
Government, and exchanges took place freely. In April, 1778, Mr.
Hartley visited Franklin at Passy, apparently for the purpose of
preventing, if possible, the offensive and defensive alliance between
America and France. Very many attempts were made to produce a rupture
between the French Government and the American Commissioners, but
Franklin insisted that no treaty of peace could be made between
England and America in which France was not included. In 1779 the
other Commissioners were recalled, and Franklin was made Minister
Plenipotentiary to the Court of France.
In a letter to Mr. David Hartley, dated February 2, 1780, Franklin
showed something of the feelings of the Americans with respect to the
English at that time:--
You may have heard that accounts upon oath have been taken in
America, by order of Congress, of the British barbarities
committed there. It is expected of me to make a school-book of
them, and to have thirty-five prints designed here by good
artists, and engraved, each expressing one or more of the horrid
facts, in order to impress the minds of children and posterity
with a deep sense of your bloody and insatiable malice and
wickedness. Every kindness I hear of done by an Englishman to an
American prisoner makes me resolve not to proceed in the work.
While at Passy, Franklin addressed to the _Journal of Paris_ a paper
on an economical project for diminishing the cost of light. The
proposal was to utilize the sunlight instead of candles, and thereby
save to the city of Paris the sum of 96,075,000 livres per annum. His
reputation in Paris is shown by the following quotation from a
contemporary writer:--
I do not often speak of Mr. Franklin, because the gazettes tell
you enough of him. However, I will say to you that our Parisians
are no more sensible in their attentions to him than they were
towards Voltaire, of whom they have not spoken since the day
following his death. Mr. Franklin is besieged, followed,
admired, adored, wherever he shows himself, with a fury, a
fanaticism, capable no doubt of flattering him and of doing him
honour, but which at the same time proves that we shall never be
reasonable, and that the virtues and better qualities of our
nation will always be balanced by a levity, an inconsequence,
and an enthusiasm too excessive to be durable.
Franklin always advocated free trade, even in time of war. He was of
opinion that the merchant, the agriculturist, and the fisherman were
benefactors to mankind. He condemned privateering in every form, and
endeavoured to bring about an agreement between all the civilized
powers against the fitting out of privateers. He held that no
merchantmen should be interfered with unless carrying war material. He
greatly lamented the horrors of the war, but preferred anything to a
dishonourable peace. To Priestley he wrote:--
Perhaps as you grow older you may ... repent of having murdered
in mephitic air so many honest, harmless mice, and wish that, to
prevent mischief, you had used boys and girls instead of them.
In what light we are viewed by superior beings may be gathered
from a piece of late West India news, which possibly has not yet
reached you. A young angel of distinction, being sent down to
this world on some business for the first time, had an old
courier-spirit assigned him as a guide. They arrived over the
seas of Martinico, in the middle of the long day of obstinate
fight between the fleets of Rodney and De Grasse. When, through
the clouds of smoke, he saw the fire of the guns, the decks
covered with mangled limbs and bodies dead or dying; the ships
sinking, burning, or blown into the air; and the quantity of
pain, misery, and destruction the crews yet alive were thus with
so much eagerness dealing round to one another,--he turned
angrily to his guide, and said, 'You blundering blockhead, you
are ignorant of your business; you undertook to conduct me to
the earth, and you have brought me into hell!' 'No, sir,' says
the guide, 'I have made no mistake; this is really the earth,
and these are men. Devils never treat one another in this cruel
manner; they have more sense and more of what men (vainly) call
humanity.'
Franklin maintained that it would be far cheaper for a nation to
extend its possessions by purchase from other nations than to pay the
cost of war for the sake of conquest.
Two British armies, under General Burgoyne and Lord Cornwallis, having
been wholly taken prisoners during the war, at last, after two years'
negotiations, a definitive treaty of peace was signed on September 3,
1782, between Great Britain and the United States, Franklin being one
of the Commissioners for the latter, and Mr. Hartley for the former.
On the same day a treaty of peace between Great Britain and France was
signed at Versailles. The United States Treaty was ratified by the
king on April 9, and therewith terminated the seven years' War of
Independence. Franklin celebrated the surrender of the armies of
Burgoyne and Cornwallis by a medal, on which the infant Hercules
appears strangling two serpents.
When peace was at length realized, a scheme was proposed for an
hereditary knighthood of the order of Cincinnatus, to be bestowed upon
the American officers who had distinguished themselves in the war.
Franklin condemned the hereditary principle. He pointed out that, in
the ninth generation, the "young noble" would be only "one five
hundred and twelfth part of the present knight," 1022 men and women
being counted among his ancestors, reckoning only from the foundation
of the knighthood. "Posterity will have much reason to boast of the
noble blood of the then existing set of Chevaliers of Cincinnatus."
On May 2, 1785, Franklin received from Congress permission to return
to America. He was then in his eightieth year. On July 12 he left
Passy for Havre, whence he crossed to Southampton, and there saw for
the last time his old friend, the Bishop of St. Asaph, and his family.
He reached his home in Philadelphia early in September, and the day
after his arrival he received a congratulatory address from the
Assembly of Pennsylvania. In the following month he was elected
President of the State, and was twice re-elected to the same office,
it being contrary to the constitution for any president to be elected
for more than three years in succession.
The following extract from a letter, written most probably to Tom
Paine, is worthy of the attention of some writers:--
I have read your manuscript with some attention. By the argument
it contains against a particular Providence, though you allow a
general Providence, you strike at the foundations of all
religion. For without the belief of a Providence that takes
cognizance of, guards, and guides, and may favour particular
persons, there is no motive to worship a Deity, to fear His
displeasure, or to pray for His protection. I will not enter
into any discussion of your principles, though you seem to
desire it. At present I shall only give you my opinion, that,
though your reasonings are subtle, and may prevail with some
readers, you will not succeed so as to change the general
sentiments of mankind on that subject, and the consequence of
printing this piece will be a great deal of odium drawn upon
yourself, mischief to you, and no benefit to others. He that
spits against the wind spits in his own face.
But were you to succeed, do you imagine any good would be done
by it? You yourself may find it easy to live a virtuous life
without the assistance afforded by religion; you having a clear
perception of the advantages of virtue and the disadvantages of
vice, and possessing strength of resolution sufficient to enable
you to resist common temptations. But think how great a portion
of mankind consists of weak and ignorant men and women, and of
inexperienced, inconsiderate youth of both sexes, who have need
of the motives of religion to restrain them from vice, to
support their virtue, and retain them in the practice of it till
it becomes _habitual_, which is the great point for its
security. And perhaps you are indebted to her originally, that
is, to your religious education, for the habits of virtue upon
which you now justly value yourself. You might easily display
your excellent talents of reasoning upon a less hazardous
subject, and thereby obtain a rank with our most distinguished
authors. For among us it is not necessary, as among the
Hottentots, that a youth, to be raised into the company of men,
should prove his manhood by beating his mother.
I would advise you, therefore, not to attempt unchaining the
tiger, but to burn this piece before it is seen by any other
person; whereby you will save yourself a great deal of
mortification by the enemies it may raise against you, and
perhaps a good deal of regret and repentance. If men are so
wicked _with religion_, what would they be _if without_ it? I
intend this letter itself as a _proof_ of my friendship, and
therefore add no _professions_ to it; but subscribe simply
yours.
During the last few years of his life Franklin suffered from a painful
disease, which confined him to his bed and seriously interfered with
his literary work, preventing him from completing his biography.
During this time he was cared for by his daughter, Mrs. Bache, who
resided in the same house with him. He died on April 17, 1790, the
immediate cause of death being an affection of the lungs. He was
buried beside his wife in the cemetery of Christ Church, Philadelphia,
the marble slab upon the grave bearing no other inscription than the
name and date of death. In his early days (1728) he had written the
following epitaph for himself:--
THE BODY
OF
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,
PRINTER,
(LIKE THE COVER OF AN OLD BOOK,
ITS CONTENTS TORN OUT
AND STRIPT OF ITS LETTERING AND GILDING,)
LIES HERE, FOOD FOR WORMS.
BUT THE WORK SHALL NOT BE LOST,
FOR IT WILL (AS HE BELIEVED) APPEAR ONCE MORE
IN A NEW AND MORE ELEGANT EDITION,
REVISED AND CORRECTED
BY
THE AUTHOR.
When the news of his death reached the National Assembly of France,
Mirabeau rose and said:--
"Franklin is dead!
"The genius, which gave freedom to America, and scattered torrents of
light upon Europe, is returned to the bosom of the Divinity.
"The sage, whom two worlds claim; the man, disputed by the history of
the sciences and the history of empires, holds, most undoubtedly, an
elevated rank among the human species.
"Political cabinets have but too long notified the death of those who
were never great but in their funeral orations; the etiquette of
courts has but too long sanctioned hypocritical grief. Nations ought
only to mourn for their benefactors; the representatives of free men
ought never to recommend any other than the heroes of humanity to
their homage.
"The Congress hath ordered a general mourning for one month throughout
the fourteen confederated States on account of the death of Franklin;
and America hath thus acquitted her tribute of admiration in behalf of
one of the fathers of her constitution.
"Would it not be worthy of you, fellow-legislators, to unite
yourselves in this religious act, to participate in this homage
rendered in the face of the universe to the rights of man, and to the
philosopher who has so eminently propagated the conquest of them
throughout the world?
"Antiquity would have elevated altars to that mortal who, for the
advantage of the human race, embracing both heaven and earth in his
vast and extensive mind, knew how to subdue thunder and tyranny.
"Enlightened and free, Europe at least owes its remembrance and its
regret to one of the greatest men who has ever served the cause of
philosophy and liberty.
"I propose, therefore, that a decree do now pass, enacting that the
National Assembly shall wear mourning during three days for Benjamin
Franklin."
HENRY CAVENDISH.
It would not be easy to mention two men between whom there was a
greater contrast, both in respect of their characters and lives, than
that which existed between Benjamin Franklin and the Honourable Henry
Cavendish. The former of humble birth, but of great public spirit,
possessed social qualities which were on a par with his scientific
attainments, and toward the close of his life was more renowned as a
statesman than as a philosopher; the latter, a member of one of the
most noble families of England, and possessed of wealth far exceeding
his own capacity for the enjoyment of it, was known to very few, was
intimate with no one, and devoted himself to scientific pursuits
rather for the sake of the satisfaction which his results afforded to
himself than from any hope that they might be useful to mankind, or
from any desire to secure a reputation by making them known, and
passed a long life, the most uneventful that can be imagined.
Though the records of his family may be traced to the Norman
Conquest, the famous Elizabeth Hardwicke, the foundress of two ducal
families and the builder of Hardwicke Hall and of Chatsworth as it was
before the erection of the present mansion, was the most remarkable
person in the genealogy. Her second son, William, was raised to the
peerage by James I., thus becoming Baron Cavendish, and was
subsequently created first Earl of Devonshire by the same monarch. His
great-grandson, the fourth earl, was created first Duke of Devonshire
by William III., to whom he had rendered valuable services. He was
succeeded by his eldest son in 1707, and the third son of the second
duke was Lord Charles Cavendish, the father of Henry and Frederick, of
whom Henry was the elder, having been born at Nice, October 13, 1731.
His mother died when he was two years old, and very little indeed is
known respecting his early life. In 1742 he entered Dr. Newcome's
school at Hackney, where he remained until he entered Peterhouse, in
1749. He remained at Cambridge until February, 1753, when he left the
university without taking his degree, objecting, most probably, to the
religious tests which were then required of all graduates. In this
respect his brother Frederick followed his example. On leaving
Cambridge Cavendish appears to have resided with his father in
Marlborough Street, and to have occasionally assisted him in his
scientific experiments, but the investigations of the son soon
eclipsed those of the father. It is said that the rooms allotted to
Henry Cavendish "were a set of stables, fitted up for his
accommodation," and here he carried out many of his experiments,
including all those electrical investigations in which he forestalled
so much of the work of the present century.
During his father's life, or, at any rate, till within a few years of
its close, Henry Cavendish appears to have enjoyed a very narrow
income. He frequently dined at the Royal Society Club, and on these
occasions would come provided with the five shillings to be paid for
the dinner, but no more. Upon his father's death, which took place in
1783, when Henry was more than fifty years of age, his circumstances
were very much changed, but it seems that the greater part of his
wealth was left him by an uncle who had been an Indian officer, and
this legacy may have come into his possession before his father's
death. He appears to have been very liberal when it was suggested to
him that his assistance would be of service, but it never occurred to
him to offer a contribution towards any scientific or public
undertaking, and though at the time of his death he is said to have
had more money in the funds than any other person in the country,
besides a balance of L50,000 on his current account at his bank, and
various other property, he bequeathed none to scientific societies or
similar institutions. Throughout the latter part of his life he seems
to have been quite careless about money, and to have been satisfied if
he could only avoid the trouble of attending to his own financial
affairs. Hence he would allow enormous sums to accumulate at his
banker's, and on one occasion, being present at a christening, and
hearing that it was customary for guests to give something to the
nurse, he drew from his pocket a handful of guineas, and handed them
to her without counting them. After his father's death, Cavendish
resided in his own house on Clapham Common. Here a few rooms at the
top of the house were made habitable; the rest were filled with
apparatus of all descriptions, among which the most numerous examples
were thermometers of every kind. He seldom entertained visitors, but
when, on rare occasions, a guest had to be entertained, the repast
invariably consisted of a leg of mutton. His extreme shyness caused
him to dislike all kinds of company, and he had a special aversion to
being addressed by a stranger. On one occasion, at a reception given
by Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Ingenhousz introduced to him a distinguished
Austrian philosopher, who professed that his main object in coming to
England was to obtain a sight of so distinguished a man. Cavendish
listened with his gaze fixed on the floor; then, observing a gap in
the crowd, he made a rush to the door, nor did he pause till he had
reached his carriage. His aversion to women was still greater; his
orders for the day he would write out and leave at a stated time on
the hall-table, where his house-keeper, at another stated time, would
find them. Servants were allowed access to the portion of the house
which he occupied only at fixed times when he was away; and having
once met a servant on the stairs, a back staircase was immediately
erected. His regular walk was down Nightingale Lane to Wandsworth
Common, and home by another route. On one occasion, as he was crossing
a stile, he saw that he was watched, and thenceforth he took his walks
in the evening, but never along the same road. There were only two
occasions on which it is recorded that scientific men were admitted to
Cavendish's laboratory. The first was in 1775, when Hunter, Priestley,
Romayne, Lane, and Nairne were invited to see the experiments with the
artificial torpedo. The second was when his experiment on the
formation of nitric acid by electric sparks in air had been
unsuccessfully attempted by Van Marum, Lavoisier, and Monge, and he
"thought it right to take some measures to authenticate the truth of
it."
Besides his house at Clapham, Cavendish occupied (by his instruments)
a house in Bloomsbury, near the British Museum, while a "mansion" in
Dean Street, Soho, was set apart as a library. To this library a
number of persons were admitted, who could take out the books on
depositing a receipt for them. Cavendish was perfectly methodical in
all his actions, and whenever he borrowed one of his own books he duly
left the receipt in its place. The only relief to his solitary life
was afforded by the meetings of the Royal Society, of which he was
elected a Fellow in 1760; by the occasional receptions at the
residence of Sir Joseph Banks, P.R.S.; and by his not infrequent
dinners with the Royal Society Club at the Crown and Anchor; and he
may sometimes have joined the social gatherings of another club which
met at the Cat and Bagpipes, in Downing Street. It was to his visits
to the Royal Society Club that we are indebted for the only portrait
that exists of him. Alexander, the draughtsman to the China Embassy,
was bent upon procuring a portrait of Cavendish, and induced a friend
to invite him to the club dinner, "where he could easily succeed, by
taking his seat near the end of the table, from whence he could sketch
the peculiar great-coat of a greyish-green colour, and the remarkable
three-cornered hat, invariably worn by Cavendish, and obtain,
unobserved, such an outline of the face as, when inserted between the
hat and coat, would make, he was quite sure, a full-length portrait
that no one could mistake. It was so contrived, and every one who saw
it recognized it at once." Another incident is recorded of the Royal
Society Club which, perhaps, reflects as much credit upon Cavendish as
upon the Society. "One evening we observed a very pretty girl looking
out from an upper window on the opposite side of the street, watching
the philosophers at dinner. She attracted notice, and one by one we
got up and mustered round the window to admire the fair one.
Cavendish, who thought we were looking at the moon, hustled up to us
in his odd way, and when he saw the real object of our study, turned
away with intense disgust, and grunted out, 'Pshaw!'"
In the spring and autumn of 1785, 1786, 1787, and 1793, Cavendish made
tours through most of the southern, midland, and western counties, and
reached as far north as Whitby. The most memorable of these journeys
was that undertaken in 1785, since during its course he visited James
Watt at the Soho Works, and manifested great interest in Watt's
inventions. This was only two years after the great controversy as to
the discovery of the composition of water, but the meeting of the
philosophers was of the most friendly character. On all these journeys
considerable attention was paid to the geology of the country.
Allusion has already been made to the two committees of the Royal
Society to which the questions of the lightning-conductors at
Purfleet, and of points _versus_ knobs for the terminals of
conductors, were referred. Cavendish served on each of these
committees, and supported Franklin's view against the recommendation
of Mr. Wilson. On the first committee he probably came into personal
communication with Franklin himself.
Cavendish's life consisted almost entirely of his philosophical
experiments. In other respects it was nearly without incident. He
appears to have been so constituted that he must subject everything to
accurate measurement. He rarely made experiments which were not
_quantitative_; and he may be regarded as the founder of "quantitative
philosophy." The labour which he expended over some of his
measurements must have been very great, and the accuracy of many of
his results is marvellous considering the appliances he had at
disposal. When he had satisfied himself with the result of an
experiment, he wrote out a full account and preserved it, but very
seldom gave it to the public, and when he did publish accounts of any
of his investigations it was usually a long time after the experiments
had been completed. One of the consequences of his reluctance to
publish anything was the long controversy on the discovery of the
composition of water, which was revived many years afterwards by
Arago's _eloge_ on James Watt; but a much more serious result was the
loss to the world for so many years of discoveries and measurements
which had to be made over again by Faraday, Kohlrausch, and others.
The papers he published appeared in the _Philosophical Transactions of
the Royal Society_, to which he began to communicate them in 1766. On
March 25, 1803, he was elected one of the eight Foreign Associates of
the Institute of France. His _eloge_ was pronounced by Cuvier, in
1812, who said, "His demeanour and the modest tone of his writings
procured him the uncommon distinction of never having his repose
disturbed either by jealousy or by criticism." Dr. Wilson says, "He
was almost passionless. All that needed for its apprehension more than
the pure intellect, or required the exercise of fancy, imagination,
affection, or faith, was distasteful to Cavendish. An intellectual
head thinking, a pair of wonderfully acute eyes observing, and a pair
of very skilful hands experimenting or recording, are all that I
realize in reading his memorials." He appeared to have no eye for
beauty; he cared nothing for natural scenery, and his apparatus,
provided it were efficient, might be clumsy in appearance and of the
cheapest materials; but he was extremely particular about accuracy of
construction in all essential details. He reminds us of one of our
foremost men of science, who, when his attention was directed to the
beautiful lantern tower of a cathedral, behind which the full moon was
shining, remarked, "I see form and colour, but I don't know what you
mean by beauty."
The accounts of Cavendish's death differ to some extent in their
details, but otherwise are very similar. It appears that he requested
his servant, "as he had something particular to engage his thoughts,
and did not wish to be disturbed by any one," to leave him and not to
return until a certain hour. When the servant came back, at the time
appointed, he found his master dead. This was on February 24, 1810,
after an illness of only two or three days.
It is mainly on account of his researches in electricity that the
biography of Cavendish finds a place in this volume. These
investigations took place between the years 1760 and 1783, and, as
already stated, were all conducted in the stables attached to his
father's house in Marlborough Street. It was by these experiments that
electricity was first brought within the domain of measurement, and
many of the numerical results obtained far exceeded in accuracy those
of any other observer until the instruments of Sir W. Thomson rendered
many electrical measurements a comparatively easy matter. The near
agreement of Cavendish's results with those of the best modern
electricians has made them a perpetual monument to the genius of their
author. It was at the request of Sir W. Thomson, Mr. Charles
Tomlinson, and others, that Cavendish's electrical researches might be
given to the public, that the Duke of Devonshire, in 1874, entrusted
the manuscripts to the care of the late Professor Clerk Maxwell. They
had previously been in the hands of Sir William Snow Harris, who
reported upon them, but after his death, in 1867, the report could not
be found. The papers, with an introduction and a number of very
valuable notes by the editor, were published by the Cambridge
University Press, just before the death of Clerk Maxwell, in 1879. Sir
W. Thomson quotes the following illustration of the accuracy of
Cavendish's work:--"I find already that the capacity of a disc was
determined experimentally by Cavendish as 1/1.57 of that of a sphere
of the same radius. Now we have capacity of disc = (2/[pi])_a_ =
_a_/1.571!"
Cavendish adopted Franklin's theory of electricity, treating it as an
incompressible fluid pervading all bodies, and admitting of
displacement only in a closed circuit, unless, indeed, the disturbance
might extend to infinity. This fluid he supposed, with Franklin, to be
self-repulsive, but to attract matter, while matter devoid of
electricity, and therefore in the highest possible condition of
negative electrification, he supposed, with AEpinus, to be, like
electricity, self-repulsive. One of Cavendish's earliest experiments
was the determination of the precis
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