120 ABBE— BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AS METEOROLOGIST. [April 20 



shavers and trimmers at court, at the bar, in church, and in state. 



Now turn to his " Articles of BeHef and Acts of Rehgion " in 

 the reprint by Smyth, vol. 2, pp. 91-100, and then recall that this 

 elaborate declaration of the very highest form of natural religion, 

 fit to be reproduced in every prayer book and Bible the world over, 

 is the earliest autograph we have from Franklin, being written by 

 him at Philadelphia, November 20, 1728, and was his daily pocket 

 companion to the end of his life! He had been back from London 

 two years and had gone through many trials, " but God was with 

 Joseph." This composition marks an epoch in his early life cor- 

 responding precisely to what is frequently spoken of as '' con- 

 version " ; but it was a conversion from men's devices to the higher 

 and larger spiritual " republic of God." This " Articles " is a 

 document that can be read only with the deepest reverence and af- 

 fords us the true measure of the religious inner life of the noblest of 

 men, — Benjamin Franklin. It fully explains how it happened that 

 from 1753 to the end of his life Franklin was the most intimate 

 companion and friend of '' the good Bishop of Asaph." 



If we systematically search for evidences of Franklin's interest 

 in meteorology we shall find that in 1726, on his return voyage from 

 London to Philadelphia, he kept a regular diary including items of 

 wind and weather, noting, for instance, on August 30, 1726, "the 

 full moon with a rainbow in the cloud to the west of us, the first 

 lunar rainbow I have ever seen." Again, on September 14, '' about 

 2 P. M. a solar eclipse covering ten-twelfth of the sun's diameter " ; 

 and on September 26th, " a sudden squall and rain, but the wind 

 backed to northeast." Again, on September 28th, " run into gulf 

 weed with barnacles and crabs " such as he seems never to have seen 

 on the seashore, he even kept living specimens to see if more such 

 crabs would hatch out, noting that they resembled the crabs he once 

 saw in salt water at Boston and Portsmouth. On September 30th 

 he sits up to observe the eclipse of the moon, which he says " occurred 

 at 5 A. M. September 30th by the London Calendar, but at 11 P. M. 

 September 29th to 2 A. M. September 30th by local ships' time," 

 hence he calculates " that we are now four and a half hours, or 6y 

 degrees, west of Greenwich." October 2d he noted that the water 

 was changing color as though they were near soundings, it changed 



