A Shocking Omission

[beamjockey]

I've just conceived a desire to look at Benjamin Franklin's Experiments and Observations on Electricity, which you'd think would be on the Web someplace, being in the public domain and all. But I can't find a copy.

(Ben's tercentenary is coming up, which reminds me that I've never read his Autobiography, and I really should before 17 January 2006, don't you think? That book, at least, is available from Project Gutenberg.)

Comments

OT coz I don't have your email

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

At Minicon we spoke on turbo-compounding a IC motor, here's VW's take on it
http://www.autoweek.com/news.cms?newsId=103048 I think this will work really nicely on smaller gas engines but be spectacular on a common rail diesel. I would have sent this by emailbut...

More than one way to search

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

Try looking at
http://print.google.com/
Darkwolf69 told me about it, and it's still in the Beta stage.
http://print.google.com/print?id=rOA5U5QR2IMC&pg=PA331&lpg=PA331&prev=http://print.google.com/print%3Fq%3D%2522Experiments%2Band%2BObservations%2Bon%2BElectricity%2522%26btnG%3DSearch%2BPrint&sig=EzooTHG5KHz-bf8xrn4zPpCXwxo

Re: More than one way to search

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

Of course if it is not on-line, this could be YOUR contribution to society!!
I once upon a time had this fantasy to have a personal webpage so unique that it could fill that function... Then time got in the way.

[liveavatar.livejournal.com]

Really, Benjamin Franklin's tercentenary? Good to know (thinking about next year's historical science fair).

[guyfie.livejournal.com]

http://dbhs.wvusd.k12.ca.us/webdocs/Chem-History/Franklin-1749/Franklin-1749-Start.html

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

Wow, the parent site is a great link. Thanks.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Well, guyfie, that site is very nice, but it reprints only one of the letters, in facsimile. The entire book ought to be on-line.

It would also be nice to read an edition rendered into modern typography, if possible; the old-fashioned "s" slows me down, as, to a lesser extent, do the other weird ligatures. To the modern eye, Franklin's prose looks like this:

"An electrified bumper is a fmall thin glafs tumbler, near filled with wine, and electrified as the bottle. This when brought to the lips gives a fhock, if the party be clofe fhaved, and does not breathe on the liquor."

(Whoopee!) This perhaps does not pose a problem to all you seasoned re-enactors, who presumably spend a lot of your time in the Eighteenth, or earlier, centuries.

I wonder if OCR software has 18th-century plug-ins?

P.S. See further ruminations on Franklin in liveavatar's journal. I love the idea of their annual Regency Science Fair.