236 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



October, 1582, should be called the 15th, and, to correct the annual 

 gain of eleven minutes, that every hundredth year should not be 

 called a leap-year, excepting every four hundredth, beginning 

 with the year 2000. All the Catholic powers immediately adopted 

 the Pope's brief, but the Protestant countries, in their intense 

 hatred of all that pertained to popery, refused to accept for a 

 long time this evidently superior calendar. It was nearly two 

 centuries before England accepted the New Style, and was the last 

 of the European governments to surrender, except Russia, which 

 clings to the Old Style to this day. Late as it was, the Royal So- 

 ciety, for recommending the change, shared in the opprobrium 

 which fell upon the ministry who adopted it. 



Whenever the prime minister appeared in public, mobs sur- 

 rounded his carriage, demanding that he restore the days by which 

 they supposed he had shortened their lives. When Astronomer 

 Royal Bradley took sick and died amid the popular excitement, 

 his death was believed to be a judgment of Heaven. This popu- 

 lar indignation extended even to the second generation ; for when 

 the son of Lord Macclesfield was standing for Parliament in the 

 county of Oxford, the rabble greeted his appearance with the 

 taunting words : " Give us back, you rascal, those eleven days 

 which your father stole from us ! " 



In 1753 Franklin's electrical experiments won for him the 

 Copley medal, a rare prize for one who was not a member of the 

 Royal Society. In 1756 he enjoyed the further distinction of 

 being elected Fellow, without having previously requested a mem- 

 ber to propose his name, which had been the almost invariable 

 custom and rule. Forasmuch as the society had elected Frank- 

 lin without any advance on his part, it was considered but a 

 graceful thing for it to release him from all annual dues, which 

 was done. Franklin, on his part, fully repaid the society for its 

 favors by frequently contributing to its " Transactions." When 

 medals and honorary memberships in all the learned societies had 

 been conferred upon him, when he had become the most talked-of 

 and courted scientist in Europe, when his attentions conferred 

 rather than received honors, even during the period of the Revo- 

 lutionary War, Franklin kept up his friendly correspondence with 

 members of the Royal Society, and the society rendered itself 

 worthy of grateful remembrance by every American in its brave 

 stand against lending itself to a narrow-minded sovereign to break 

 down Franklin's scientific reputation. 



Franklin's electrical experiments had led to his discovery of 

 lightning-rods, of the power of rods and points to carry off safely 

 the electrical shock. The accuracy of his experiments was gener- 

 ally conceded, but Abbe* Nollet, in France, opposed the points and 

 declared that the rods should be blunt. A Mr. Wilson raised the 



