4^0-^ [Nov. 15, 



Mr. Mercer spoke of recent finds in Wyandotte and other 

 caves, exhibiting specimens. 



Prof. James presented copies of two letters written by Dr, 

 Franklin, the originals being now in Leipzig, 



I take pleasure in presenting to the American Philosophical Society, 

 copies of two letters by Benjamin Franklin : one, dated Philadelphia, 

 November 28, 1751, and addressed to President Clap ; the other, dated 

 Philadelphia. December 12, 1763, and addressed to the Rev. Mr. Stiles, 

 Newport, R. I. I'he first letter is written on one side of a folio leaf ; the 

 second is a double quarto leaf written on one side. The originals of 

 these letters are in the University Library at Leipzig ; they were copied 

 for me through the courtesy of the Librarian, Prot. Dr. Gebhardt. 



I do not know that these letters have any special value, but my own 

 experience in such matters leads me to the conviction that it is desirable 

 to file and preserve all such letters, as the most insignificant and innocent- 

 looking one may be the means, owing to its relation to other letters, of 

 enabling us to determine important facts in the life of the parties con- 

 cerned. 



In this connection I should like to call the attention of the Society to a 

 visit which Dr. Franklin paid to Germany in the year 1766, and which 

 appears to have been almost entirely neglected by his biographers. The 

 only reference to it, which I have been able to find in the works or lives 

 of Franklin, is a letter to his wife dated London, June 13, 1766, and 

 printed in Sparks' Works of Franklin, Vol. vii, p 320, in which he writes 

 that he expects to start with Sir John Pringle on a journey to Pyrmont 

 on the next day. As he says in this letter that he proposes to visit some 

 of the German cities near Pyrmont, I thought perhaps it might be inter- 

 esting to find if any references to this visit occurred in the German litera- 

 ture of the time or later. In a pamphlet published at Goltingen in 1890, 

 containing addresses delivered on the 4th of July of that year by various 

 Americans in Gottingen, I found the statement that Benjamin Franklin 

 was in Gottingen for a short time in the autumn of 1766 ; that he had in 

 mind the establishment of a university at Philadelphia and desired to 

 study the organization of the University of Gottingen, with a view to ob- 

 taining such suggestions as might be useful to him. 



The baths of Pyrmont, which have been famous for several centuries, 

 are still a well-known resort in Germany. I wrote, therefore, to the 

 director of the baths to find out whether any record of Franklin's visit had 

 been kept. He replied that the original records of the management had 

 been lost, but that in a book published at Berlin in 1783, entitled, 

 Pyrmord Brunnenarchw, a list of the guests at Pyrmont from 1752 

 was printed, and that under the year 1766 was to be found the following 

 entry : 



" Leib Medicus Ritter Pringle aus Loudon uud Dr. Franklin aus Penn- 

 sylvanien, kommt aus London." 



