PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 19 



He seems to have been the first to deliver public scientific lec- 

 tures in America, occupying the platform in Philadelphia, New- 

 port, New York, and Boston, from 1751 to the beginning of 

 the Revolution. The following advertisement was printed in 

 the "Pennsylvania Gazette" for April n, 1751: 



NOTICE is hereby given to the Curious that Wednesday next 

 Mr. Kinnersley proposes to begin a Course of Experiments on the 

 newly-discovered Electrical fife, containing not only the most 

 curious of those that have been made and published in Europe, 

 but a considerable Number of New Ones lately made in this City, 

 to be accompanied with methodical Lectures on the Nature and 

 Properties of that Wonderful Element. 



Francis Hopkinson [b. 1737, d. 1791], signer of the Declar- 

 ation of Independence, was treasurer of the Philosophical 

 Society, and among other papers communicated by him was 

 one in 1783, calling attention to the peculiar worm parasitic in 

 the eye of a horse. The " horse with a snake in its eye" was 

 on public exhibition in Philadelphia in 1782, and was the 

 object of much attention, for the nature and habits of this peculiar 

 Filaria were not so well understood then as now. 



The father of Francis, Thomas Hopkinson [b. in London, 

 1709, d. in Philadelphia, 1751], who was overlooked in my 

 previous address, deserves, at least, a passing mention. Coining 

 to Philadelphia in 1731 he became lawyer >( prothonotary, Judge 

 of the Admiralty, and member of the Provincial Council. As 

 an incorporator of the Philadelphia Library Company, and origi- 

 nal trustee of the College of Philadelphia, and first President 

 of the American Philosophical Society in 1743, his public spirit 

 is worthy of our admiration. He was associated with Kin- 

 nersley and Franklin in the " Philadelphia Experiments;" and 

 Franklin said of him : 



44 The power of points to throw off the electrical fire was first 

 communicated to me by my ingenious friend, Mr. Thomas Hop- 

 kinson."* 



* WILSON & FISKE : Cyclopaedia of American Biography, iii, 260. 



