BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AS METEOROLOGIST. 



By professor CLEVELAND ABBE. 



{Read April 20, 1906.) 



I have been requested by the chief of the Weather Bureau to 

 represent him at this bi-centennial celebration and to express the 

 profound respect that we have for Benjamin FrankHn as the first 

 meteorologist of America. It is true that we have records made 

 by observers of the weather before he began his scientific activity, 

 but the progress of meteorology has been such that we have now 

 learned to put the philosophical investigator, that is to say, the 

 man of research, far above the mere observer and recorder. Con- 

 sidered as a mere chronicle of passing events the study of the 

 weather dates from the earliest ages ; but considered as a rational 

 investigation into its ultimate physical causes, or as the logical ap- 

 plication of well established principles to the elucidation of unex- 

 plained phenomena, or as a system of research checked at every step 

 by observations and experiments, the modern physical meteorology 

 or theoretical meteorology, or dynamic meteorology deals exclusively 

 with force or energy, and dates from the days of Galileo, Sir Isaac 

 Newton, Huyghens, Descartes, Boyle and Gay-Lussac, with whom 

 Benjamin Franklin was a worthy co-laborer. 



At the present moment we are apt to apply the term " scientist " 

 to one who devotes himself almost exclusively to some special de- 

 partment of research ; but in Franklin's day those who contributed to 

 research were generally occupied most of the time with other work, 

 and this was notably true of him. 



It is often remarked that events happening in one's childhood, 

 or even a few years before one's birth, may produce such a profound 

 impression on the whole community as to affect the general trend of 

 one's thought and life ; therefore, since Franklin did, from early 

 youth, turn his attention so strongly toward natural phenomena, 

 it may be worth while mentioning the fact that he was born in 



117 



