The Works of Benjamin Franklin: Containing Several Political and Historical Tracts Not Included in Any Former Edition, and Many Letters, Official and Private, Not Hitherto Published, Band 6

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Benjamin Franklin Stevens, 1882

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Seite 228 - I am very sorry, that you intend soon to leave our hemisphere. America has sent us many good things, gold, silver, sugar, tobacco, indigo, &c. ; but you are the first philosopher, and indeed the first great man of letters, for whom we are beholden to her.
Seite 23 - That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.
Seite 435 - Convincing sovereigns of the folly of wars may perhaps be one effect of it, since it will be impracticable for the most potent of them to guard his dominions. Five thousand balloons, capable of raising two men each, could not cost more than five ships of the line; and where is the prince who can afford so to cover his country with troops for its defence, as that ten thousand men descending from the clouds might not in many places do an infinite deal of mischief, before a force could be brought together...
Seite 426 - Such changes in the superficial parts of the globe seemed to me unlikely to happen, if the earth were solid at the centre. I therefore imagined that the internal parts might be a fluid more dense, and of greater specific gravity than any of the solids we are acquainted with ; which therefore might swim in or upon that fluid. Thus the surface of the globe would be a shell, capable of being broken and disordered by the violent movements of the fluid on which it rested.
Seite 396 - That the vegetable creation should restore the air which is spoiled by the animal part of it, looks like a rational system, and seems to be of a piece with the rest.
Seite 16 - ... all philosophical experiments that let light into the nature of things, tend to increase the power of man over matter and multiply the conveniences or pleasures of hie.
Seite 343 - ... were, by the smoothness of the water over them, which might possibly be occasioned, he thought, by some oiliness proceeding from their bodies. A gentleman from Rhode Island told me, it had been remarked, that the harbor of Newport was ever smooth while any whaling vessels were in it : which probably arose from hence, that the blubber which they sometimes bring loose in the hold, or the leakage of their barrels, might afford some oil, to mix with that water, which from time to time they pump out...
Seite 365 - I wish it were possible, from this instance, to invent a method of embalming drowned persons in such a manner that they may be recalled to life at any period, however distant; for having a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of America a hundred years hence, I should prefer to any ordinary death the being immersed in a cask of Madeira wine with a few friends till 1 that time, to be then recalled to life by the solar warmth of my dear country!
Seite 550 - ... with their food by slovenly workmen, who went to their meals after handling the metal, without well washing their fingers, so that some of the metalline particles were taken off by their bread and eaten with it.
Seite 236 - The fingers should be first a little soaked in water, and quite free from all greasiness ; a little fine chalk upon them is sometimes useful, to make them catch the glass and bring out the tone more readily.

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