FRANKLIN'S PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 435 



model of ' a hand threshing machine,' invented by a A^irginian, and 

 his communication in regard to a new plowshare. 



Natural history had many enthusiastic students. America was a 

 great boneyard which before the fertilizer companies despatched their 

 agents everywhere afforded much that was of curious concern to natural- 

 ists. Skeletons of strange animals, tusks, antlers and ' grinders ' came 

 pouring into the Society's museum. Jefferson described ^ certain bones 

 of a qiiadruped of the clawed kind' found in western Virginia. Another 

 member put into print an Indian legend about ' the big naked bear.' 

 Without offering any of its bones in evidence, he tells us that the bear, 

 naked all over except for a spot of white hair upon its back, was the most 

 ferocious of American animals. It devoured man and beast and was 

 so large that an Indian or a common bear served it for but a single 

 meal. Its heart was so small that the arrow could seldom find it. It 

 could be slain only by a blow deftly dealt upon its backbone, and many 

 who went forth to hunt this terror of the forest primeval never came 

 back again. 



Other philosophers interested themselves in living objects and we 

 have luminous accounts of ' amphibious serpents,' ' one partridge with 

 two hearts,' ' the numb-fish or torporific eel ' and ' a living snake in a 

 living horse's eye.' This horse had been placed on exhibition in Phila- 

 delphia by a free negro, who undertook to profit by the popular curiosity 

 for disagreeable sights. 



The Society early engaged itself in a scientific work which brought 

 it wide recognition, and quite deservedly so. Already in 1768 Professor 

 Ewing made a report to the philosophers in regard to an impending 

 transit of Venus which it had been calculated would occur in the summer 

 of the following year. Before that time the phenomenon had been ob- 

 served only twice and then rather partially, the first time in 1639 and 

 again in 1761. A reflecting telescope was imported from England 

 through Franklin's kindly intercession. The day when it arrived 

 proved to be perfectly clear, and the observations were so well made 

 and were recorded in so scientific a manner that the Society at once 

 gained a high reputation among men whose good opinion it was worth 

 while to possess. An eminent authority in Europe at that time wrote 

 of this achievement: 



The first approximately accurate results in the measurement of the 

 spheres were given to the world not by the schooled and salaried astronomers 

 who watched from the magnificent royal observatories of Europe, but by unpaid 

 amateurs and devotees to science in the youthful province of Pennsylvania. 



Almost simultaneously with this manifestation of the seriousness 

 of its mind came a proposal from the Society to undertake the surveys 

 for a canal which should be cut to join the Chesapeake and Delaware 

 bays. To make possible this laudable work the philosophers asked the 



