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in damp air, but the volatile particles of corrupted animal matter mixed with that water, which renders such air pernicious to those who breathe it. And I imagine it a cause of the same kind that renders the air in close rooms, where the perspirable matter is breathed over and over again by a number of assembled people, so hurtful to health. After being in such a situation, many find themselves affected by that febricula which the English alone call a cold, and, perhaps from the name, imagine that they caught the malady by going out of the room, when it was in fact by being in it.

You begin to think that I wander from my subject, and go out of my depth. So I return again to my chimneys.

We have of late many lectures in experimental philosophy. I have wished that some of them would study this branch of that science, and give experiments in it as a part of their lectures. The addition to their present apparatus need not be very expensive. A number of little representations of rooms, composed each of five panes of sash-glass, framed in wood at the corners, with proportionable doors, and movable glass chimneys, with openings of different sizes, and different lengths of funnel, and some of the rooms so contrived as to communicate on occasion with others, so as to form different combinations, and exemplify different cases; with quantities of green wax taper cut into pieces of an inch and half, sixteen of which, stuck together in a square, and lit, would make a strong fire for a little glass chimney, and, blown out, would continue to burn, and give smoke as long as desired. With such an apparatus, all the operations of smoke and rarefied air in rooms and chimneys might be seen through their transparent sides; and the effect of wind on chimneys, commanded or otherwise, might be shown by letting the entering air blow upon them through an opened window of the lecturer's chamber, where it would be constant while he kept a good fire in his chimney. By the help of such lectures our fumists would become better instructed. At present, they have generally but one remedy, which perhaps they have known effectual in some one case of smoky chimneys; and they apply that indiscriminately to all the other causes, without success, but not without expense to their employers.

With all the science, however, that a man shall suppose himself possessed of in this article, he may sometimes meet with cases that may puzzle him. I once lodged in a house at London, which, in a little room, had a single chimney and funnel. The opening was very small, yet it did not keep in the smoke, and all attempts to have a fire in this room were fruitless. I

could not imagine the reason, till at length observing that the chamber over it, which had no fireplace in it, was always filled with smoke when a fire was kindled below, and that the smoke came through the cracks and crevices of the wainscot, I had the wainscot taken down, and discovered that the funnel which went up behind it had a crack many feet in length, and wide enough to admit my arm, a breach very dangerous with regard to fire, and occasioned probably by an apparent irregular settling of one side of the house. The air, entering this breach freely, destroyed the drawing force of the funnel. The remedy would have been filling up the breach, or rather rebuilding the funnel; but the landlord rather chose to stop up the chimney.

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Another puzzling case I met with at a friend's country-house near London. His best room had a chimney in which, he told me, he never could have a fire, for all the smoke came out into the room. I flattered myself I could easily find the cause, and prescribe the cure. I had a fire made there, and found it as he said. I opened the door, and perceived it was not want of air. I made a temporary contraction of the opening of the chimney, and found that it was not its being too large that caused the smoke to issue. I went out and looked up at the top of the chimney; its funnel was joined in the same stack with others, some of them shorter, that drew very well, and I saw nothing to prevent its doing the same. In fine, after every other examination I could think of, I was obliged to own the insufficiency of my skill. But my friend, who made no pretensions to such kind of knowledge, afterwards discovered the cause himself. He got to the top of the funnel by a ladder, and, looking down, found it filled with twigs and straw cemented by earth, and lined with feathers. It seems the house, after being built, had stood empty some years before he occupied it; and he concluded that some large birds had taken advantage of its retired situation to make their nest there. The rubbish, considerable in quantity, being removed, and the funnel cleared, the chimney drew well and gave satisfaction.

In general, smoke is a very tractable thing, easily governed and directed, when one knows the principles, and is well informed of the circumstances. You know I made it descend in my Pennsylvania stove.

Much more of the prosperity of a winter country depends on the plenty and cheapness of fuel than is generally imagined. In travelling, I have observed that in those parts where the inhabitants can have neither wood, nor coal, nor turf, but at excessive prices, the working people live in miserable hovels, are

ragged, and have nothing comfortable about them. But when fuel is cheap (or where they have the art of managing it to advantage) they are well furnished with necessaries, and have decent habitations. The obvious reason is, that the working hours of such people are the profitable hours, and they who cannot afford sufficient fuel have fewer such hours in the twentyfour than those who have it cheap and plenty; for much of the domestic work of poor women, such as spinning, sewing, knitting, and of the men in those manufactures that require little bodily exercise, cannot well be performed where the fingers are numbed with cold; those people, therefore, in cold weather, are induced to go to bed sooner, and lie longer in a morning, than they would do if they could have good fires or warm stoves to sit by; and their hours of work are not sufficient to produce the means of comfortable subsistence. Those public works, therefore, such as roads, canals, &c., by which fuel may be brought cheap into such countries from distant places, are of great utility; and those who promote them may be reckoned among the benefactors of mankind.

I have great pleasure in having thus complied with your request, and in the reflection that the friendship you honor me with, and in which I have ever been so happy, has continued so many years without the smallest interruption. Our distance from each other is now augmented, and nature must soon put an end to the possibility of my continuing our correspondence; but, if consciousness and memory remain in a future state, my esteem and respect for you, my dear friend, will be everlasting.

MORAL AND MISCELLANEOUS.

ON SEARCHING AFTER HIDDEN TREASURES.*

THERE are amongst us great numbers of honest artificers and laboring people, who, fed with a vain hope of growing suddenly rich, neglect their business almost to the ruining of themselves and families, and voluntarily endure abundance of fatigue in a fruitless search after imaginary hidden treasures. They wander through the woods and bushes by day, to discover the marks and signs; at midnight they repair to those hopeful spots with spades and pickaxes; full of expectation, they labor violently, trembling at the same time in every joint through fear of certain malicious demons, who are said to haunt and guard the places. At length, a mighty hole is dug, and perhaps several cart-loads of earth thrown out; but, alas, no keg or iron pot is found! no seaman's chest, ornamented with Spanish pistoles or weighty pieces of eight! Then they conclude that, through some mistake in the procedure, some rash word spoke, or some rule of art neglected, the guardian spirit had power to sink it deeper into the earth, and convey it out of his reach. Yet when a man is once thus infatuated, he is so far from being discouraged by illsuccess, that he is rather animated to double his industry, and will try again and again, in a hundred different places, in hopes at last of meeting with some lucky hit, that shall at once sufficiently reward them for all their expense of time and labor.

This odd humor of digging for money, through a belief that much has been hid by pirates formerly frequenting the river, has for several years been mighty prevalent among us; insomuch that you can hardly walk half a mile out of the town on any

This paper is from a series of essays entitled "The Busy Body," of which Franklin gives some account in his Autobiography. They are mostly in imitation of the Spectator, and were written when he was about twentythree years of age. They are, for the most part, such "unconsidered trifles as he must have taken little pride in preserving.

side, without observing several pits dug with that design, and perhaps some lately opened. Men otherwise of very good sense have been drawn into this practice through an overrunning desire of hidden wealth, and an easy credulity of what they so earnestly wished might be true; while the rational and almost certain methods of acquiring riches by industry and frugality are neglected or forgotten. There seems to be some peculiar charm in the conceit of finding money, and, if the sands of the Schuylkill were so much mined with small grains of gold that a man might in a day's time, with care and application, get together to the value of half a crown, I make no question but we should find several people employed there that can with ease earn five shillings a day at their proper trades.

Many are the idle stories told of the private success of some people, by which others are encouraged to proceed; and the astrologers, with whom the country swarms at this time, are either in the belief of these things themselves, or find their advantage in persuading others to believe them; for they are often consulted about the critical times for digging, the methods of laying the spirit, and the like whimseys, which renders them very necessary to, and very much caressed by, the poor, deluded money-hunters.

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There is certainly something very bewitching in the pursuit after mines of gold and silver, and other valuable metals, and many have been ruined by it. A sea-captain of my acquaintance used to blame the English for envying Spain their mines of silver, and too much despising and overlooking the advantages of their own industry and manufactures. For my part," says he, "I esteem the banks of Newfoundland to be a more valuable possession than the mountains of Potosi; and, when I have been there on the fishing account, I have looked upon every cod pulled up into the vessel as a certain quantity of silver ore, which required only carrying to the next Spanish port to be coined into pieces of eight; not to mention the national profit of fitting out and employing such a number of ships and sea

men."

Let honest Peter Buckram, who has long without success been a searcher after hidden money, reflect on this, and be reclaimed from this unaccountable folly; let him consider that every stitch he takes when he is on his shop-board is picking up a part of a grain of gold, that will in a few days' time amount to a pistole; and let Faber think the same of every nail he drives, or every stroke with his plane; such thoughts may make them industrious, and of consequence in time they may be

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