Colonel John Schuyler, one of the owners, has a deer park five miles round, fenced with cedar logs, five logs high, with blocks of wood between. It contains a variety of land, high and low, woodland and clear. There are a great many deer in it; and he expects in a few years to be able to kill two hundred head a year, which will be a very profitable thing. He has likewise six hundred acres of meadow, all within bank. The mine is not far from Passaic Falls, which I went also to see. They are very curious; the water falls seventy feet perpendicularly, as we were told; but we had nothing to measure with.

It will be agreeable to you to hear, that our subscription goes on with great success, and we suppose will exceed five thousand pounds of our currency. We have bought for the Academy the house that was built for itinerant preaching, which stands on a large lot of ground capable of receiving more buildings to lodge the scholars, if it should come to be a regular college The house is one hundred feet long and seventy wide built of brick, very strong, and sufficiently high for three lofty stories. I I suppose the building did not cost less than two thousand pounds; but we bought it for seven hundred seventy-five pounds, eighteen shillings, eleven pence, and three farthings; though it will cost us three and perhaps four hundred more to make the partitions and floors, and fit up the rooms. I send you enclosed a copy of our present constitutions; but we expect a charter from our Proprietaries this summer, when they may probably receive considerable alterations. The paper admonishes me that it is time to conclude. I am, Sir,

Your obliged humble servant,

B. FRANKLIN.

TO CADWALLADER COLden.*

*

Electrical Papers and Experiments. James Logan.

SIR,

Philadelphia, 28 June, 1750.

I wrote a line to you last post, and sent you some electrical observations and experiments. You formerly had those papers of mine, out of which something has been taken by Mr. Watson, and inserted in the Transactions. If you have forgot the contents of those papers, I am afraid some things in that I last sent you will hardly be understood, as they depend on what went before. I send you herewith my essay towards a new hypothesis of the cause and effects of lightning, &c., of which you may remember some hints in my first electrical minutes. I sent this essay above a twelvemonth since to Dr. Mitchell in London, and have since heard nothing of it, which makes me doubt of its getting to hand. In some late experiments, I have not only frequently fired unwarmed spirits by the electrical stroke, but have even melted small quantities of copper, silver, and gold; and not only melted, but vitrified them, so as to incorporate them with common glass; and this without any sensible heat, which strengthens my supposition, that the melting of metals by lightning may be a cold fusion. Of these experiments I shall shortly write a particular account. I wrote to Mr. Collinson, on reading in the Transactions the accounts, from Italy and Germany, of giving purges, transferring odors, &c. with the electrical effluvia, that I was persuaded they were not true. He since informs me, that Abbé

This letter was first published in the American Medical and Philo sophical Register, for January, 1812. — Editor.

Nollet, of Paris, who had tried the experiments without success, was lately at the pains to make a journey to Turin, Bologna, and Venice, to inquire into the facts, and see the experiments repeated, imagining they had there some knacks of operating that he was unacquainted with; but, to his great disappointment, found little or no satisfaction; the gentlemen there having been too premature in publishing their imaginations and expectations for real experiments. Please to return me the papers when you have perused them.

My good old friend, Mr. Logan, being about three months since struck with a palsy, continues speechless, though he knows people, and seems in some degree to retain his memory and understanding. I fear he will not recover. Mr. Kalm is gone towards Canada again, and Mr. Evans† is about to take a journey to Lake Erie, which he intends next week. Mr. Bartram continues well and hearty. I thank you for what you write concerning celestial observations. We are going on with our building for the Academy, and propose to have an observatory on the top; and, as we shall have a mathematical professor, I doubt not but we shall soon be able to send you some observations accurately made.

I am, with great esteem and respect, &c.

B. FRANKLIN.

P. S. If you think it would be agreeable to Mr. Alexander, or any other friend in New York, to peruse these electrical papers, you may return them to me through his hands.

A Swedish botanist, who travelled in different parts of America, and afterwards published an account of his travels. - EDITOR.

Lewis Evans, author of "Geographical, Historical, Political, Philosophical, and Mechanical Essays," of some other tracts, and of a Map of the Middle Colonies, which was valued as being better than any that han preceded it.- EDITOR.

TO JARED ELIOT.

Inquiries respecting the Mode of Planting Hedges

DEAR SIR,

Philadelphia, 25 October, 1750.

I ought to have informed you sooner, that we got well home, and should have inquired after your health, as we left you in the hands of a fever. I beg you will excuse the delay, and desire you will remember in my favor the old saying, They who have much business must have much pardon. Whenever Mr. Francis and I meet of an evening, we drink your health, among our other New England friends, and he desires to be always respectfully remembered to you.

I am glad to hear you are got well again; but I cannot have the pleasure of seeing you again this year. I will write to Colonel Schuyler, and obtain for you a particular account of his manner of improving his banked grounds; and will also procure for you a specimen of our alum earth, with Mr. Syng's observations on it. In return (for you know there is no trade without returns) I request you to procure for me a particular account of the manner of making a new kind of fence we saw at Southhold, on Long Island, which consists of a bank and hedge. I would know every particular relating to this matter, as the best thickness, height, and slope of the bank; the manner of erecting it, the best time for the work, the best way of planting the hedge, the price of the work to laborers per rod or perch, and whatever may be of use for our information here, who begin in many places to be at a loss for wood to make fence with. We were told at Southhold, that this kind of fencing had been long practised with success at Southampton and other places, on the south side

of the Island, but was new among them. I hear the minister at Southhold is esteemed an ingenious man; perhaps you may know him, and he will at your request favor me with an explicit account of these fences.

The fore part of the summer here was extremely dry, and the grass in many places was burnt up. But we had a good crop of wheat; and, rains coming on about the end of July, we had in August a new spring, the grass sprouting again wonderfully thick and fast, in fields where we thought the very roots had been destroyed. Our grave-diggers said they found the earth. hot sensibly at three feet depth, even after these rains; perhaps the great heat below, and the moisture above, occasioned this sudden and profuse vegetation, the whole country being, as it were, one great hot-bed. I am, with esteem and affection, dear Sir, Your obliged humble servant,

B. FRANKLIN.

DEAR SIR,

TO JARED ELIOT.

Remarks on Husbandry.

Philadelphia, 10 December, 1751.

The rector of our Academy, Mr. Martin, came over to this country on a scheme for making potash, in the Russian method. He promised me some written directions for you, which expecting daily, I delayed writing, and now he lies dangerously ill of a kind of quinsy. The surgeons have been obliged to open his windpipe, and introduce a leaden pipe for him to breathe through. I fear he will not recover.