Facsimile of the Peace Treaty


or Properties of Matter, he wrote rather caustically:
"Of the importance of turning a knowledge of

chemistry to household purposes I have been long
satisfied. The common herd of philosophers seem
to write only for one another. The chemists have
filled volumes on the composition of a thousand
substances of no sort of importance to the purposes
of life"

During the five years he spent in France—and in
travelling widely in Europe—Jefferson served almost
as a one-man bureau of information in keeping his
American friends abreast of the progress of European
science, sending home books and journals to
Rittenhouse, Franklin and Rush and to the colleges of
Yale, William and Mary, Harvard and Philadelphia.
He returned in 1789 more than ever determined to
encourage scientific activity and to obtain proper
recognition for American scientists. His own prestige,
and his appointment as Secretary of State in
Washington's first cabinet and later of course as
Vice-President and finally as the third President of
the United States, helped materially in raising the

standing of science in his country and its significance
to the community.

Jefferson also amassed the finest library of his time,
which eventually became the nucleus of the Library
of Congress, just as the library of George III—
himself something of an amateur scientist—became
the nucleus of the British Museum Library!

But despite George III and some of his ministers,
relations between scientists in the colonies and those
in the mother country were not altogether impaired,
and the spirit of encouragement was renewed after
the negotiation of peace with England in which
Franklin had played the major role. Writing to
Franklin in 1783 Sir Joseph Banks, the greatest
President the Royal Society had elected for many
years, looked forward to the prospect of freer com-
munications, and went on:

"My sincere congratulations on the return of
peace, which in whatever form she is worshipped,
bad peace or good peace, never fails to prove
herself the Faithful nurse of Science."

Facsimile of the Peace Treaty
AN ATTRACTIVE APPLICATION OF GOLD ELECTROFORMING

No less important than the
Declaration of Independence
was the Peace Treaty signed
at the York Hotel in Paris be-
tween England and the United
States in September 1783.
One unusual and attractive
feature of the bicentennial
celebrations is a facsimile of
this treaty, printed on hand-
made paper similar to that of
the original document, bound
in leather, and with the eight
corner pieces and the central
plaque on the covers and the
seals of the signatories—John
Adams, Benjamin Franklin,
John Jay and the English
pleniopotentiary, Franklin's
friend David Hartley—repro-
duced in high purity gold by
electroforming from the origi-
nals. A modified sulphite bath
was used, and all the gold
ietms are hall-marked.

A limited number of copies
of this collector's item will be
produced later in the year and
will be available from B.J.S.
Electro-Plating Company Ltd,
348 Kilburn High Road, Lon-
don NW6.

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