692 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 435 



American cause, speeches which have 

 hardly been reported in full. 



During these eventful years his corre- 

 spondents in England and in the Colonies 

 kept him well informed both of the actions 

 and plans of the government and of the 

 opposition. Some of these may be of inter- 

 est as showing how earnestly both sides 

 were presented to him, that he might use his 

 influence to maintain peace. Priestley, who 

 was then the secretary of Lord Shelbourne, 

 writes from London in February, 1776, 

 with a due report of political and scientific 

 information, and Lee and Wayne write to 

 him during the campaign which was to end 

 in Burgoyne's surrender, and thus con- 

 tribute largely to the alliance with France, 

 which owed so much to Franklin 's influence 

 not only with the French court and French 

 statesmen, but with the philosophers and 

 the people. 



His correspondence in Paris is a per- 

 fect picture of the time. One day he gets 

 an invitation to attend experiments in elec- 

 tricity from a correspondent, Brogniart, 

 who reports the successful treatment of sick 

 people by electric fluid in 1778, and soon 

 after the Cure of Damvillers asks him for 

 a cure for dropsy for one of his parish- 

 ioners. 



His correspondence came from England 

 and from all parts of the continent and 

 from the "West Indies in an unending 

 stream. 



A very curious letter is one from Richard 

 Penn, dated London, October 20, 1778, 

 which I think has never been printed, in 

 which he says: , 



"I should think myself infinitely obliged 

 to you if you could point out to me in what 

 manner I could procure, either from Amer- 

 ica or in any other way, a temporary sub- 

 sistence. I have not a doubt but that in 

 time matters will turn out much to the ad- 

 vantage of everybody concerned and con- 

 nected with that country." 



"When it is remembered that the hostility 

 of the Penns to Franklin was so strong that 

 Governor John Penn declined to be patron 

 of the American Philosophical Society be- 

 cause it had chosen Franklin for its presi- 

 dent, and that Richard Penn had been 

 Lieutenant-Governor (as deputy for that 

 uncle and his brother) from 1771 to 1773, 

 it must have been difficult for Franklin not 

 to feel that such a letter from such a man 

 at such a time was indeed a tribute to his 

 position, achieved solely by his own efforts. 



It is well that this venerable society, so 

 largely the result of his labors, should be 

 made the custodian of the papers that fol- 

 low almost his daily thoughts, and it is to 

 be hoped that the preparation and publica- 

 tion of a calendar showing their contents 

 may be completed at no distant day, cer- 

 tainly by the two hundredth anniversary of 

 the birth of our founder, and thus per- 

 petuate his memory. 



Afternoon Session, 2 o'clock. 

 Vice-President Scott in the chair. 

 Further Notes on the Santa Cruz Eden- 

 tates: Professor "William B. Scott, of 

 Princeton. 



The fossil edentates of the Santa Cruz 

 beds in Patagonia differ very notably from 

 the forms now living in South America. 

 Of the three edentate orders represented 

 in the Santa Cruz, only one, the armadil- 

 los, has persisted to the present day, while 

 no trace of the true sloths or of the ant- 

 eaters has yet been found. The ground- 

 sloths are very numerous and form very 

 interesting evolutionary series leading to 

 the giant species of the Pampean, while 

 the armadillos and glyptodonts are, for the 

 most part, away from the main line of 

 descent. 



An Attempt to Correlate the Marine with 

 the Non-marine Jurassic and Cretaceous 

 Formations of the Middle West: Pro- 

 fessor John B. Hatchee, of Pittsburgh, 



