1To Benjamin Franklin from —————, 8 August 1764 (Franklin Papers)
AL (mutilated): American Philosophical Society [I am] returning you my kind thanks for your favour in lending me the Perusal of Mr. Pringles account of the Meteor seen in England &c. some time agone, which I herewith return. I have been at some Pains in geting the account of this that appear’d here the 20th Ulto. in the Evening, but a Great Deal Appears from what has been said to be Imperfect...
2To Benjamin Franklin from ———, 1754 (Franklin Papers)
AL : American Philosophical Society This letter, undated, unsigned, and in an unidentified hand, survives among Franklin’s papers. Internal evidence indicates that it was written by someone in the colonies and at about the middle of the eighteenth century. Because the problem of colonial union was being so actively discussed in 1754, it is tentatively assigned to that year. According to your...
3To Benjamin Franklin from ——: The Dispute over Commissions for the Militia, [January 1756] (Franklin Papers)
Draft (incomplete): American Philosophical Society The author of this document, which survives among Franklin’s papers, might have been any one of several well-informed members of the anti-proprietary party who was in Philadelphia at the end of December 1755. The handwriting has not been identified. The manuscript consists of three pages, the first two of which are numbered 5 and 6, and the...
4To Benjamin Franklin from ———, 10 May 1757 (Franklin Papers)
AL (incomplete): American Philosophical Society The accurate determination of longitude by a ship at sea long remained an unsolved problem. Several theoretically possible methods were advanced during the two centuries and a half after Columbus, but when put to actual test none proved both practicable and sufficiently reliable to serve the needs of mariners, especially of those embarked on long...
Printed: Franklin, Papers The Papers of Benjamin Franklin , ed. Leonard W. Labaree, William B. Willcox (from vol. 15), and others, New Haven, 1959– . , 16:222–224. For the circumstances of the committee’s appointment and its correspondence with Franklin, see the preceding document . Printed ( Franklin, Papers The Papers of Benjamin Franklin , ed. Leonard W. Labaree, William B. Willcox (from...
6To Benjamin Franklin from Lucrezia Agujari, 12 December 1774 (Franklin Papers)
AL : Historical Society of Pennsylvania L’Agujari umilia i suoi ossequj al Signor Dottore Benjamin Franklin, e lo supplica di gradire L’omaggio, che Essa hà L’onore di presentarle con la Stampa della Cantata, che eseguirà questa sera al Pantheon. [The Agujari presents her humble respects to Dr. Franklin, and begs him to accept the tribute that she has the honor of offering him, along with the...
7To Benjamin Franklin from James Alexander, 29 January 1753 (Franklin Papers)
Copies of letter and enclosure: New-York Historical Society The rare transits of Venus across the sun’s surface were among the most important astronomical occurrences in the eighteenth century because they offered astronomers opportunities to calculate the solar parallax—the angle subtended at the sun by the earth’s radius—and thus not only provided a basis for computing the actual distance...
8To Benjamin Franklin from James Alexander, 1753 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Benjamin Franklin, Experiments and Observations on Electricity (London, 1769), pp. 280–1. If I remember right, the Royal Society made one experiment to discover the velocity of the electric fire, by a wire of about four miles in length, supported by silk, and by turning it forwards and backwards in a field, so that the beginning and end of the wire were at only the distance of two...
9To Benjamin Franklin from Robert Alexander, 3 September 1770 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society Since my return to Scotland, I have been some days in the Country by which means I did not receive your Letter before yesterday. I return you a Thousand Thanks for the Trouble you have taken about the Harpsichord, the one you describe at 33 Guineas is precisely what is wanted and therefore you will please give orders to have it immediately packt up and Sent...
10To Benjamin Franklin from R[obert] A[lexander], 8 March 1767 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society I send my [ sic ] by the Bearer the Portfolio containing my Papers the Key to which you will find here inclosed, I shall send for them back betwixt twelve and one in order to convey them to our other Friend who is so kind as to keep himself disengaged thorough [ sic ] the day in order to give them a serious Perusal. There is a Letter I received from my...