122 ABBE— BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AS METEOROLOGIST. [April 20 



abundance of foul weather this year and therefore, I have scattered 

 here and there where I could find room, some fair, pleasant, sunshiny, 

 for the good women to dry their clothes in. If it does not come to 

 pass according to my desire I have shown my good will, however, 

 and I hope they will take it in good part." I believe that all the 

 prefaces to Poor Richard's Almanac have been reproduced in Smyth's 

 edition of the writings of Benjamin Franklin, and their humor is so 

 telling that one may well wonder why the most credulous person in 

 those days should have imagined that there could have been anything 

 serious or reliable in such almanac forecasts. Nothing can be more 

 ironical and comical than the following illustration from the pref- 

 ace for 1739: "Ignorant men wonder how the astrologists foretell 

 the weather so exactly unless we deal with the old black devil, alas ! 

 it is as easy as is this. The star gazer peeps at the heavens through 

 a long glass ; he sees perhaps Tai;rus or the great Bull in a mighty 

 chafe stamping on the floor of his house, swaying his tail about, 

 stretching out his neck and opening wide his mouth. It is natural 

 from these appearances to judge that this furious bull is puffing, 

 blowing and roaring. Distance being considered, and time allowed 

 for all this to come down [to the earth] — there you have wind and 

 thunder." 



But Franklin's life was devoted to the work of promoting useful 

 knowledge and abolishing ignorance, superstition and credulity. 

 His guiding principles were close observation and logical experi- 

 mentation, and as these succeeded perfectly in his hands in all manner 

 of business and in his dealings with mankind, he did not see why they 

 should not hold good in dealing with nature. His proposal of May 

 14, 1743, to form a society of ingenious men from all parts of the 

 colonies, to maintain a constant correspondence, and his offering of 

 himself as secretary to that great undertaking, involved such an 

 expenditure of time, thought and money, that we may well consider 

 him as the father of cooperative systematic research in this country, 

 even though a similar idea had animated the Royal Society of Lon- 

 don for many years before. He had freed himself from the tram- 

 mels of theological connections, he was not afraid to see the truth 

 and state the truth; he recognized the limitations of man, that we 

 can not possibly know for a certainty anything except by personal 



