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The polymath Benjamin Franklin was a printer, newspaper publisher, scientist, inventor, author, popularizer of American independence, and diplomat in Europe. This illustration accompanies a letter he wrote in 1753 to John Perkins about a paper he was working on concerning the formation of "water spouts." He states: I ought to have written to you long since, in answer to yours of October 16th concerning the water-spout; but business partly, and partly a desire of procuring further information by inquiry among my sea-faring acquaintance, induced me to postpone writing from time to time, till I am now almost ashamed to resume the subject, not knowing but you may have forgot what has been said upon it.