Were we to pursue the remainder of Franklin's history, we should find the fame of the patriot vying with that of the philosopher, in casting a splendor over it; and the originally poor and unknown tradesman standing before kings, associating as an equal with the most eminent statesmen of his time, and arranging along with them the wars and treaties of mighty nations. When the struggle for independence commenced, Franklin took a very active part. He was soon sent ambassador to the court of France, where principally through his exertions an alliance was brought about between the two countries, which produced an immediate war between the latter and England. In 1783, he signed the treaty of peace, which recognised our independence. Two years after he arrived in Philadelphia, where he was chosen president of the Supreme Executive Council of the city. He closed his eventful and honorable life on the 17th of April, 1790, in the eighty-fifth year of his age.

Franklin was in conversation sprightly, in manners bland. Destitute of pride, he considered all honest men on an equality. During the time he was in Great Britain, in the dignified station of ambassador, he went into his old printing office, and entering the press-room, proceeded to a particular press where two men were at work: "Come, my friends," says he, "we will drink together; it is now forty years since I worked like you at this press, as a journeyman printer." A gallon of porter was sent for, and he then drank "success to printing." At a later period, the merchants in Philadelphia being desirous to establish an assembly for dancing, they drew up some rules, among which was one "that no mechanic or mechanic's wife or daughter should be admitted on any terms." This rule being submitted to Franklin, he remarked that “it excluded God Almighty, for he was the greatest mechanic in the universe." An enemy to every thing aristocratic, even his eloquence partook of an unpretending character; but he developed his ideas with clearness and precision. He had always at hand an immense stock of common sense, and possessed the very useful quality of being "eminently great in little things.'

OLIVER EVANS.

Birth.-Apprenticed to a wagon maker.-Fondness for study.-Penuriousness of his master.-Pursues his evening studies by the light of burning shavings.Turns his attention to the propelling of carriages without animal power.-An experiment.-Renews his studies with increased ardor.-Is laughed at for declaring that he can make steam carriages.-Opinions confirmed by experiment. -Is defrauded of an invention for making card teeth.-Marries.-Enters into the milling business with his brothers.-His inventions revolutionize the manufacture of flour.-Account of those improvements.-Difficulties attending their introduction.-Opposition of the Brandywine millers.-Petitions the Legislature of Pennsylvania for the right of using his mill improvements and steam carriages.-The former granted and the latter ridiculed.-The Legislature of Maryland grant them both.-Commences a steam carriage at his own expense.-Latrobe's report.-Lays aside the carriage and builds a steam engine for mills, which reduces him to poverty.-Final success.-Constructs a machine for cleaning docks.-First American locomotive.-Public incredulity. His the first high pressure engine.—Submits a proposition to the Lancaster turnpike company.-Predictions.-Mill improvements gradually come into use.-Violators. Unsuccessful lawsuit.-Petitions congress for a renewal of his patents. -Memorial of his opponents.-Counter memorial.-Triumph.-His published works.-Death.

It is but seldom that the pen of the biographer has occasion to trace the memoir of an individual possessing equal perseverance, or greater originality of mechanical conception, than the subject of this memoir, who has been aptly styled "the Watt of America."

Oliver Evans was born in Newport, Delaware, sometime in the year 1755 or 1756. Little is preserved respecting his early his. tory. His parents were agriculturists of respectable standing, who gave their son the advantages common to people in their station. At the age of fourteen Evans was apprenticed to a wheelwright or wagon maker. An anecdote is preserved which displays in his character, even at this period, that ardent desire for know. ledge, and that determination ever evinced not to let any obstacle interfere with the object of his pursuits. His master, an illiterate man, observing his apprentice employing his leisure evenings in study, through motives of parsimony, forbade him using candles; but young Evans was not to be discouraged, for, collecting at the close of each day the shavings made from his work, he would take them to the chimney corner, and, by their uncertain light, pursue his evening studies.

While yet an apprentice his attention was turned to the subject

of propelling land carriages without animal power; but all the methods with which he was acquainted appearing too futile to deserve an experiment, he concluded such motion to be impossible for the want of a suitable original power. But one of his brothers informed him on a Christmas evening that he had that day been in company with a neighboring blacksmith's boy, who, for amusement, had stopped up the touch-hole of a gun barrel, then pouring in a gill of water, rammed down a tight wad; after which on putting the breech in the fire, it discharged itself with a report like gunpowder. The active mind of Evans, ever awake to the phenomena around him, instantly saw that here was the long desired power, if he could only apply it, and from this period endeavored to discover the means. He labored for some time without success; at length a book fell into his hands describing the old atmospheric steam engine; and he was greatly astonished to observe they had so far erred as to use the steam only in forming a vacuum to apply the mere pressure of the atmosphere, instead of using the elastic force of the steam for the original motion, the power of which he supposed irresistible. He thereupon renewed his studies with increased ardor, and soon declared that he could make steam car. riages, and endeavored to communicate his ideas to others, but was only listened to with ridicule. Persevering, his experiments confirm. ed his opinions; but want of means for a time compelled him to abandon its prosecution.

When twenty-three or twenty-four years of age he was engaged in making card teeth by hand, at that period the only method known. Finding this a tedious operation, he invented a machine that would manufacture three thousand a minute, but was defrauded of a great share of the benefits derived from it. Shortly after he projected a plan for pricking the leather in cards, and at the same time cutting, bending, and setting the teeth; but owing to the unfortunate result of the previous invention, never carried it into

execution.

At the age of twenty-five Mr. Evans married a daughter of Mr. John Tomlinson, a respectable farmer of Delaware. About this period he entered into business with his brothers, who were millers, and wished to avail themselves of his talents and ingenuity. Here was an appropriate field for the display of a genius like his, and ere long was commenced those series of improvements in the construction of machinery and appurtenances of mills which effected a complete revolution in the manufacture of flour. These improvements consist of the invention and various application of the fol.owing machines, viz:-The elevator, the conveyor, the hopper. boy, the drill, and the descender, which five machines are variously