Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/249

Rh same objections in England. The question, which at other times would have been decided in scientific circles, became a political one. George III, in his eagerness to weaken Franklin's prestige, decided the scientific question like a king, adopted Wilson's views, and had blunt rods erected upon his palace. The Royal Society was appealed to. It emphatically declared for pointed rods. The president of the society, Sir John Pringle, was sent for, and royally commanded to support Wilson in the meetings. Sir John remonstrated: "Sire, I can not reverse the laws and operations of nature." George III modestly suggested, "Perhaps, Sir John, you had better resign."

Franklin's ready wit seized this incident to spit the king upon the point of this epigram:

 While you, great George, for knowledge hunt, And sharp conductors change for blunt, The nation's out of joint; Franklin a wiser course pursues, And all your thunder useless views, By keeping to the point."

When Halley predicted the transit of Venus in 1761, the Royal Society recommended the Government to send out capable men to India to make careful observations of this important astronomical event. For this purpose Mason and Dixon, two eminent astronomers and mathematicians, were dispatched, with all necessary apparatus, upon the Government vessel Sea-Horse, to Bencoolen.

An encounter with a French frigate drove the expedition into a friendly port. The astronomers proved poor soldiers, and they wrote home to have themselves released from the hazardous undertaking.

Their apparatus was better fitted for dealing with whirling bodies at a distance rather than at close range. However, the English Government commanded them to sail, which they with much trepidation proceeded to do, although the time wasted prevented them from reaching Bencoolen. They consequently landed at the Cape of Good Hope and made their observations there.

Mason and Dixon were later associated in an expedition which proved more successful. They landed in Philadelphia in 1763, and proceeded to survey, and settle for all time, the disputed boundary-line between the colonial patents of the Penns and Lord Baltimore. This line afterward became famous in American history from its division of the free and the slave States of the Union.

It is sad to relate that the society which could stand so bravely beside a non-resident member should so weakly yield to popular clamor as to break the last tie which held one of its most