Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/747

 F R A F K A 711 &quot; Yegaar,&quot; is exported chiefly to Jecldali and Yemen ports. 1 The latter may possibly be what Niebuhr alludes to as &quot; ludian frankincense.&quot; 2 Garcias da Horta, in asserting the Arabian origin of the drug, remarks that the term &quot; Indian &quot; is often applied by the Arabs to a dark-coloured variety. 3 According to Pliny (Nat. Hist., xiv. 1 ; cf. Ovid, Fast. i. 337 sq. ), frankincense was not sacrificially employed in Trojan times. It was used by the ancient Egyptians in their religious rites, but, as Herodotus tells us (ii. 8G), not in embalming. It constituted a fourth part of the Jewish incense of the sanctuary (Ex. xxx. 34-), and is frequently mentioned in the Pentateuch. With other spices it was stored in a great chamber of the house of God at Jerusalem (1 Chron. ix. 29, Neh. xiii. 5-9). On the sacrificial use and import of frankincense and simitar substances see INCENSE. In the Red Sea regions frankincense is valued not only for its sweet odour when burnt, but as a masticatory ; and blazing lumps of it are not infrequently used for illumina tion instead of oil lamps. Its fumes are an excellent iusec- tifuge. As a medicine it was in former times in high re pute. Pliny (Nat. Hist., xxv. 82) mentions it as an anti dote to hemlock. Avicenna (ed. Plempii, lib ii. p 161, Lovanii, 1658, fol.) recommends it for tumours, ulcers of the head and ears, affections of the breast, vomiting, dysentery, and fevers. Dr Delioux of Toulon (Bull. Gen. de Therap., Feb. 28, 1861) considers its curative properties equal to those of other balsamic medicines, and that for cheapness it is preferable for hospital use to the balsams of Peru and Tolu, and, being more agreeable to the stomach, to tar, As a fumigating agent, he advocates its employment in bronchitis and chronic laryngitis. In the East frankincense has been found efficacious as an external application in carbuncles, blind boils, and gangrenous sores, and as an internal agent is given in gonorrhoea. In China it was an old internal remedy for leprosy and struma, and is accredited with stimulant, tonic, sedative, astringent, and vulnerary proper ties. Its stimulant action appears to be directed chiefly to the mucous surfaces of the body. (See Waring, Pharm. of India, p. 443, &c. ; and F. Porter Smith, op.cit., p. 162.) Common Frankincense or Thus, Abietis resina, is the term applied to a resin which exudes from fissures in the bark of the Norway spruce fir, Abies excelsa, D.C.; when melted in hot water and strained it constitutes &quot; Burgundy pitch,&quot; Fix abietina. The concreted turpentine obtained in the United States by making incisions in the trunk of a species of pine, Pinm australis, is also so designated. It is commercially known as &quot;scrape,&quot; and is similar to the French &quot;galipot&quot; or &quot;barras.&quot; Common frankincense is an ingredient in some ointments and plasters, and on account of its pleasant odour when burned has been used in incense as a substitute for olibanum. (See Fliickiger and Ilanbury, Pharmacograplda.) The &quot;black frankincense oil &quot; of the Turks is stated by Hanbury (Science Papers, p. 142, 1876) to be liquid storax. (F. H. B.) FRANKLIN. See FREEHOLD. 1 Vaughan (Pharm. Journ., xii., 1853) speaks of the Arabian Luban, commonly called Morbat or Shaharree Luban, as realizing higher prices in the market than any of the qualities exported from Africa. The incense of &quot;Esher,&quot; i.e., Shihr or Shehr, is mentioned by Marco Polo, as also by Barbosa. (See Yule, op. cii., ii. p. 377.) J. Raymond Wellsted (Travels to the City of the Caliphs, p. 173. Lond., 840) distinguishes two kinds of frankincense &quot; Meaty,&quot; selling at $4 per cwt. , and an inferior article fetching 20 per cent. less. 8 &quot;Es scheint dass selber die Araber ihr eignes Rauchwerk nicht hoch schatzen ; denn die Voniehnien in Jemen brauchen gemeiniglich imlianisches Rauchwerk, ja eine grosse Menge Mastix von der Insel Scio&quot; (Beschreibung von Arabien, p. 143, Kopenh., 1772). &quot; Do Arabibus minus minim, qui nigricantem colorem, quo Thus ndi ? um prceditum esse vult Dioscorides [lib. i. c. 70], Indum ple- lumque vocent, ut ex Myiobalano nigro quern Indum appellant, patet&quot; ((p. sup. cit., p. 157). FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN (1706-1790), one of the most eminent journalists, diplomatists, statesmen, and philo sophers of his time, was born in the city of Boston, and in the colony of Massachusetts Bay, on the 17th of January 1706. He was the youngest of ten children, and the youngest son for five consecutive generations. His father, who was born at Ecton, in Northamptonshire, England, where the family may be traced back for some four centuries, married young, and emigrated to America with three children in 1682. From his parents, who never knew any illness save that of which they died (the father at eighty and the mother at eighty five), he inherited an excellent constitution, and a good share of those heroic mental and moral qualities by which a good constitution is preserved. In his eighth year Benjamin, who never could remember when he did not know how to read, was placed at school, his parents intending him for the church. That purpose, however, was soon abandoned, and in his tenth year he was taken from school to assist his father, who, though bred a dyer, had taken up, on his arrival in New England, the business of tallow-chandler and soap boiler. The lad worked at this, to him, most distasteful business, until his twelfth year, when he was apprenticed to his elder brother James, then just returned from England with a new printing press and fount of type, with which lie proposed to establish himself in the printing business. In 1720-21 James Franklin also started a newspaper, the second that was published in America, called The New England Courant. Benjamin s tastes inclined him rather to intellectual than to any other kind of pleasures, and his judgment in the selection of books was excellent, At an early age he had made himself familiar with the Pilgrim s Pro gress, with Locke On the Understanding, and with some odd volumes of the Spectator, then the literary novelty of the day, which he turned to good account in forming the style which made him what he still remains, the most uniformly readable writer of English who has yet appeared on his side of the Atlantic. His success in reproducing articles he had read some days previously in the Spectator led him to try his hand upon an original article for his brother s paper, which he sent to him anonymously. It was accepted, and attracted some attention. The experiment was re peated until Benjamin had satisfied himself that his suc cess was not an accident, when he threw off his dis guise. He thought that his brother treated him less kindly after this disclosure ; but that did not prevent James from publishing his paper in Benjamin s name, when, in consequence of some unfortunate paragraphs which appeared in its columns, he could only obtain his release from prison, to which the colonial assembly had condemned him, upon condition that he &quot; would no longer print the New England Courant&quot; The relations of the two brothers, however, gradually grew so inharmonious that Benjamin determined to quit his brother s employment and leave New England. He sold some of his books, and with the proceeds, in October 1723, he found his way to the city of Philadelphia, where, 400 miles from home, at the immature age of seventeen, without an acquaintance, and with only a few pence in his pocket, he was fortunate enough to get employment with a Jew printer named Keimer. Keimer was not a man of business, and knew very little of his trade, nor had he any very competent assistants. Franklin, who was a rapid composer, ingenious and full of resources, soon came to be recognized by the public as the master spirit of the shop, and to receive flattering attentions from prominent citizens who had had opportunities of appreciating his cleverness. Among others, Sir William Keith, the governor of the province, who may have possessed all the qualifications for his station except every one of the few which are quite indispensable to a gentleman, took him under his patronage,