Benjamin Franklin Papers

To Benjamin Franklin from Jean-François-Clément Morand, [1780–1781]

From Jean-François-Clément Morand

LS: American Philosophical Society

[1780–1781]2

M. morand, aussitot que le tems, S’adoucira, S’occupera des articles qui reviennent a M. le Venerable et Veneré Confrere M. Franklin; en attendant M. Morand desireroit que M. Franklin Voulut bien S’occuper de Ce qui Suit.

Le Volume des transact. an. 1676, No. 130, art. 13. p. 762, fait mention d’une mine de charbon de terre, embraseè, près Newcastle; depuis cette epoque, il n’a etè fait mention nulle part de cette mine embrasée. Existe-t-elle encore, en ce cas, Sa Situation, Son nom.3

Addressed: M. Franklin

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

2While BF had helped Morand in earlier stages of his work (XX, 380; XXIV, 404; XXVII, 506–7), this query, the last extant piece of correspondence between the two, comes sometime during BF’s vénéralat and most likely during the period when Morand was preparing a new edition of L’Art d’exploiter les mines de charbon de terre. Originally published between 1767 and 1779 as part of the Académie’s Descriptions des arts et métiers, the work was partially reprinted in 1780 and 1781 as volumes 16, 17, and 18 of the Neufchâtel quarto edition. His question here may have been for volume 18 (1781) which included supplementary material as well as corrections: Arthur H. Cole and George B. Watts, The Handicrafts of France as recorded in the Descriptions des Arts et Métiers 1761–1788 (Boston, 1952), pp. 32, 37.

3These are the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society for the year 1676, volume 10. On May 15, 1676, D. Lucas Hodgson, physician in Newcastle, communicated his observations on the subterranean fire in that mine.

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