118 ABBE— BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AS METEOROLOGIST. [April 20 



January, 1706, and that shortly before this, on the 26th November, 

 1703, there was a most awful and destructive storm on the coast of 

 England, in which a great number of merchants' vessels and crews 

 were lost, as also thirteen sail of British men-of-war with fifteen 

 hundred and nineteen men. This is the storm celebrated by Defoe's 

 description, and to this day it must arouse the attention of every 

 reader. Franklin was a child when in December, 1708, there oc- 

 curred the coldest month experienced in New England up to that 

 time, but I believe that we have no thermometric records for that 

 time, as accurate thermometers, those made by Fahrenheit, were 

 first brought to this country in 1720 by Dr. John Lining, of Charles- 

 ton, S. C. 



The various published editions of Franklin's writings have 

 brought to public attention such a great variety of remarkable works 

 that we are apt to think of him as a statesman, a printer, a philan- 

 thropist, an electrician and a patriot ; but a careful study of his 

 life and an examination of the great mass of unpublished manu- 

 scripts have shown that if he had done nothing else but his work in 

 meteorology that alone would have entitled him to the highest rank. 

 On this subject he thought and wrote for sixty years, from his 

 diary of 1726 to his long range forecasts of 1786. 



In the course of a study of old Philadelphia records, my atten- 

 tion has often been called to the profound influence exerted through- 

 out this country and Europe by this great man. This present date 

 is in fact the anniversary of his death and burial, yet we celebrate 

 his birth and life, for he cannot be said to be dead and gone while 

 the spirit that animated him still lives ; while his influence is still 

 felt ; while his example is ever before us ; while his words are re- 

 peated daily ; while his maxims are the mottos of our own lives ; 

 while his monuments are everywhere and still increasing around 

 us. He marked out the rules of life that will be followed for all time 

 by reasonable men. 



Right here let me stop to controvert an error that I have heard 

 repeated today notwithstanding the most beautiful and truthful 

 oration of yesterday by the Hon. Hampton L. Carson. I am told 

 in effect that Franklin was not a religious man. There could not be 

 a more monstrous error than this ; it could only have emanated from 



