20 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



remedy for moderate deafness by putting the thumb and fingers 

 behind the ear, pressing outward and enlarging it, as it were, 

 by the hollow of the hand, which he had tried with satisfaction ; 

 Noah Webster's labours on the English language, with a plea 

 for its purity and approval of a scheme for a reformed alpha- 

 bet ; an instrument for taking books down from shelves; the 

 distillation of fresh from salt water, with a theory that the skin 

 has imbibing as well as discharging pores, and we might drink 

 by sitting or lying in the water, even in salt water ; the discov- 

 ery of an ancient sepulchre, perhaps of a Scythian king, on the 

 frontiers of Russia ; improvements in navigation, of which he 

 had made careful studies during his long voyages across the 

 ocean, and on which he has observations respecting sails, ca- 

 bles, models, power at sea, the course of the Gulf Stream, pre- 

 cautions, and general reflections on the subject, relating to 

 which a paper was read to the American Philosophical Society 

 in 1785; the evil effects of lead on the human system, to 

 which, although they had been known for years, not much 

 attention seems to have been paid ; building houses with ref- 

 erence to safety against fire; the Deluge as a possible result of 

 the internal fluidity of the earth ; the wonderful discoveries 

 made by Herschel and " the indefatigable ingenuity by which 

 he has been enabled to make them " ; and on the merits of the 

 Greek and Latin languages for general instruction, the time 

 spent in learning which, he thought, might be better employed 

 in the education suitable for such a country as ours. 



Among Franklin's economical papers is one on the nature 

 and necessity of a paper currency, in which the sound prin- 

 ciples are declared that "money as bullion or as land is valu- 

 able by so much labour as it costs to procure that bullion or 

 that land ; money as a currency has an additional value by so 

 much time and labour as it saves in the exchange of commod- 

 ities." In his letter on customs duties he squarely avows the 

 principle of freedom of commerce, but apologizes for the tariff 

 imposed by the colonies on the ground of their necessity to 

 raise money to pay their debt, and that by the most convenient 

 means. " We are not ignorant," he wrote to M. de Veilard, 

 " that the duties paid at the custom-house on the importation 

 of foreign goods are finally reimbursed by the consumer, but 

 we impose them as the easiest way of levying a tax from those 

 consumers" ; and to M. Dupont de Nemours, "You appear to 



