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62 a conspicuous part in the Revolutionary struggle; and each at the time of his death was president of that learned society which had afforded them many of their opportunities.

Here, however, the parallel ends. Rittenhouse was more of a scientist, and Franklin more of a politician. With the boldness which comes of strength, blended with a sufficiency of shrewdness, Franklin went out into the world knowing there was much in it he wanted, and determined to get what he could. Despite of his admirable talents, his knowledge of men and affairs, his sagacious forecast of the future, and his magnificent work in various fields, he had many of the characteristics of an adventurer. In scanning the events of his life we cannot help but wish that as an apprentice he had not run away from his master, that his relations with women had never become the subject of conversation, that he had given more credit to Kinnersley for his electrical experiments,, and that he had not united with the Quakers while they were in power, or had remained with them after they lost it. Rittenhouse, on the other hand, was altogether clean, simple, and pure, and in the supreme event of his life, the observation of the transit of Venus, after making the instruments, noting the contacts, and calculating the parallax, he left for his colleague, Dr. Smith, the preparation of the report for publication. While, therefore, it may well be that through lack of aggressiveness or through overnicety he failed to gather all that he might have secured, we approach him with full faith that whatever he did was his own work, and whatever he gained belonged to him.

He came of good ancestry. His paternal forefathers had long been paper-makers in the city of Arnheim, in Holland, and there belonged to the Mennonites — a