190 SEPAKATE REPORT ON THE 



ciations, meeting for informal talk, dropping off one by 

 one, but the survivors still holding together, as Frank- 

 lin says, "till the eve of life is spent." The body de- 

 scribed in the minutes is a group of much younger men, 

 three of them sons of the men who carry on the corre- 

 spondence, meeting for the discussion of definite scien- 

 tific questions. There is not a single case in which the 

 same person is mentioned in the two bodies of records, 

 until we reach, in 1768, the notice of the election of 

 Benjamin Franklin to membership in the younger body. 



At some time, perhaps in the summer of 1765, when, 

 as one of the early members, Philip Syng, wrote some- 

 what later, "the Junto fainted last summer in the hot 

 weather and has not yet revived, ' ' the old group seems 

 to have ceased to meet. 6 Yet even twenty years later, 

 in 1785, when but three of them were still living, they 

 retained their old feeling of comradeship, for one of 

 their members, Hugh Roberts, writing to another, Ben- 

 jamin Franklin, concerning the third says, "Philip 

 Syng, the only other surviving member of the old Junto, 

 labours under infirmities, keeps much at home where I 

 can seldom go to visit him." 7 



The younger group, on the other hand, continued to 

 meet, although with various intermissions, until in 1768 

 they changed their name, enlarged their membership, 

 and prepared themselves for the amalgamation with 

 the Philosophical Society which took place next year. 



The proof in these letters of the non-identity of the 



e Keport, p. 133. 

 7 Keport, pp. 135-6. 



