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© 1938  Nature Publishing Group

No. 3583, jULY 2, 1938 NATURE 9 

The Benjamin Franklin Memorial, Philadelphia 

T HREE days of stately ceremonies, including the unveiling of a heroic white marble statue 
of Benjamin Franklin, lectures on pure and applied 
science, a two million dollar philatelic exhibition, 
military and naval displays, exhibits contrasting the 
science of Frank-
lin's time with that 
of to-day, marked 
the formal dedica-
tion of the Ben-
jamin Franklin 
Memorial on May 
19-21, at the 
Franklin Institute, 
Philadelphia, Pa. 

to the new Franklin shrine by representatives of 
to-day's printing industry were prominent features 
of the dedication. 

"From this time forward the Benjamin Franklin 
Memorial will be his [Benjamin Franklin's] 

permanent home, 
and I extend a 
hearty invitation 
to all people every-
where to visit him 
and make him their 
friend," said Mr. 
Pepper in a dedica-
tory address. 

The French Am-
bassador to the 
United States, 
Count Rene Doynel 
de Saint Quentin ; 
Herbert C. Hoover, 
former President of 
the United States ; 
Daniel C. Roper, 
Secretary of Com-
merce; George 
Wharton Pepper, 
formerly a senator 
of the United 
States ; Roland S. 
Morris, president of 
the AmericanPhilo-
sophical Society 
and formerly am-
bassador from the 
United States to 
Japan ; Sir James 
Colquhoun Irvine, 
principal and vice-
chancellor of the 
University of St. 

STATUE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IN THE FRANKLIN JLu.L, 
FRANKLIN INSTITUTE, PHILADELPHIA 

The new 'home' 
of the eighteenth 
century sage who 
revealed the iden-
tity of lightning and 
electricity and 
made important 
investigations and 
discoveries in many 
other fields of 
natural philosophy, 
is fittingly located 
in a classic struc-
ture dedicated to 
scientific progress. 
In the spacious 
building on Ben-
jamin Franklin 
Parkway in Phila-
delphia, the Frank-
lin Institute, 
founded in 1824 
and active in the 
promotion of science 
and the mechanic 
arts, maintains its 
"Wonderland of 

Andrews, Scotland ; and Dr. Louis Martin, 
director of the Pasteur Institute, Paris, were 
among the notable figures participating in cere-
monies honouring the Philadelphia printer who 
became a world-famed man of science and 
statesman. 

The annual award of medals by the Franklin 
Institute ; the conferring of degrees by the 
University of Pennsylvania, which is the out-
growth of an academy founded by Franklin ; the 
participation by thousands of school children in 
massed choruses and bands and in a colourful 
"Young Philadelphia Parade" ; and a pilgrimage 

Science" Museum, where more than 4,000 action 
exhibits reveal the part played by science in every-
day life ; and its Fels Planetarium, noted for its 
reproductions of the heavens. The spiritual centre 
of this building, and a public shrine to the memory 
of the great statesman and natural philosopher, is 
the new Franklin Memorial. There, in a lofty 
memorial room inspired by the Pantheon in Rome, 
rises the heroic statue; a seated figure in white 
Seravezza marble, more than twice life-size. Upon 
its huge pedestal of rose aurora marble from 
Portugal, it extends to a height of 18 feet above 
the floor. The sculptor, James Earle Fraser, whose 



© 1938  Nature Publishing Group

10 NATURE jULY 2, 1938, VoL. 142 
notable statues, groups and relief portraits grace 
many parks and public buildings throughout the 
United States and Canada, began work on the 
Franklin statue five years ago, and has described 
his own conception in the following words : 

"A massive figure, tranquil in body, with latent 
power in his hands, but with an inquisitive expres-
sion in the movement of his head and the alertness 
of his eyes, ready to turn the full force of his keen 
mind on any problem that concerned life." 

In a manner that would have aroused the keen 
interest of her famous ancestor, ten-year-old Miss 
Louisa Johnston Castle, of Wilmington, Delaware, 
a lineal descendant of Franklin, unveiled the statue 
by turning a searchlight upon a photo-electric cell. 

In the three-day programme, Franklin was 
commemorated as "Patriot and Man", as "Philo-
sopher and Educator", and as "Printer and 
Business Man". Special exhibits depicting the 
advance of science from Franklin's day to the 
present time, on display in the Wonder land of 
Science Museum, vied with lectures by noted men 
of science and educators of two continents in the 
tribute to the great American's scientific achieve-
ments. Developments in electricity were shown, 
from an electrical machine which Franklin once 
owned to a modern half-million volt surge generator 
producing man-made lightning. Progress in print-
ing, 'Poor Richard's' own craft, was demonstrated 
from a hand-press used in Franklin's original 
printing shop to modern presses that print in four 
colours. Paper-making was performed by hand 
just as it was in Franklin's day, and the entire 
modern process from pulp to finished paper also 
was demonstrated on a miniature scale-model 
Fourdrinier paper-making machine. A replica of 
the "Pennsylvanian Fireplace", one of Franklin's 
outstanding inventions, was shown in contrast 
with an exhibition of the development within the 
last twenty years in automatic oil-heating equip-
ment for home use. 

In a notable series of lectures on pure science, 
given at the Franklin Institute on May 20, Sir 
James C. Irvine spoke on "Benjamin Franklin in 
Saint Andrews, 1759", Dr. C. E. K. Mees, director 

of the Research Laboratory of the Eastman 
Kodak Company, Rochester, N.Y., who is a native 
of Wellingborough, England, and was educated at 
Harrogate and St. Dunstan's, on "Photography 
and the Advance of Pure Science" ; Dr. Gilbert N. 
Lewis, dean of the College of Chemistry, University 
of California, Berkeley, Calif., on "Old and New 
Views of Acids"; Dr. George D. Birkoff, the dis-
tinguished mathematician of Harvard University, 
Cambridge, Mass., on "Electricity as a Fluid" ; 
Dr. Forest Ray Moulton, permanent secretary of 
the American Association for the Advancement of 
Science, Washington, D.C., on "The Influence of 
Astronomy on Science"; Dr. Arthur L. Day, 
formerly director of the Geophysical Laboratory, 
Carnegie Institution, Washington, D.C., on "Vol-
canoes, Geysers and Hot Springs"; Dr. Louis 
Martin, director of the Pasteur Institute, Paris, 
on "L'Hospitalisation des Maladies Contagieuses" ; 
Dr. Thomas H. Morgan, of the California Institute 
of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., on "Human 
Heredity and Modern Genetics"; and Dr. Merritt 
L. Fernald, of Harvard University, on "Must All 
Rare Plants Suffer the Fate of Franklinia ?" 

Lectures on applied science were given at the 
Franklin Institute on the following day by Dr. 
Willis R. Whitney, vice-president in charge of 
research, General Electric Company, Schenectady, 
N.Y., who spoke on "It's Called Electricity" ; 
Dr. Abel Wolman, professor of sanitary engineering, 
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., on 
"The Trend of Civil Engineering since Benjamin 
Franklin"; and Dr. Harvey N. Davis, president 
of the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, 
N.J., on "Engineering and Health". 

Delegates from leading learned societies and 
educational institutions of the United States and 
Europe were welcomed at the dedication ceremony 
by Philip C. Staples, president, and Dr. Henry 
Butler Allen, secretary and director of the Franklin 
Institute. Sir Albert Seward, delegate from the 
Royal Society of London, was in attendance with 
Lady Seward, and presented to the Institute a 
photostat copy of the certificate making Franklin 
a fellow of the Royal Society in 1756. 

Artificial Production of Snow Crystals 

JN NATURE of August 28, 1937, p. 345, an 
account was given by G. Seligman of experi-

ments carried out at the University of Hokkaido 
by Prof. U. Nakaya. Since that article was 
written, Prof. Nakaya has made considerable 
progress towards his aim to produce, artificially 
and under strictly controllable conditions, the 

great variety of natural snow crystals*. He 
assumes that we can trace the entire history of 
the fallen snow crystal from observations of its 
size, form and habit, and infer the physical state of 

• "Preliminary Experiments on the Artificial Production of Snow 
Crystals". By lJkitlr6 Nakaya, Isonosuke Sata and Yatar6 Sekido. 
"Further Experiments on the Artificial Production of Snow Crystals". 
BY; Nakaya, Toda and Maruyama. (J. Fac. 
SC1.., Hokkaldo Univ., Senes II, Vol. II, No. 1; 1938.) 


	The Benjamin Franklin Memorial, Philadelphia