PARIS, December 23, 1786.
DEAR SIR,--My last letter to you was dated August 14th. Yours of May
27th and June 28th, were not then received, but have been since. I take
the liberty of putting under your cover another letter to Mrs. Champis,
as also an inquiry after a Dr. Griffiths. A letter to M. le Vieillard,
from the person he had consulted about the essence L'Orient, will
convey to you the result of my researches into that article. Your
spring-block for assisting a vessel in sailing cannot be tried here,
because the Seine, being not more than about forty toises wide, and
running swiftly, there is no such thing on it as a vessel with sails. I
thank you for the volume of the Philadelphia transactions, which came
safely to hand, and is, in my opinion, a very valuable volume, and
contains many precious papers. The paccan-nut is, as you conjecture,
the Illinois nut. The former is the vulgar name south of the Potomac,
as also with the Indians and Spaniards, and enters also into the
Botanical name which is Juglano Paccan. I have many volumes of the
"Encyclopédie" for yourself and Dr. Franklin; but, as a winter passage
is bad for books, and before the spring the packets will begin to sail
from Havre to New York, I shall detain them till then. You must not
presume too strongly that your comb-footed bird is known to M. de
Buffon. He did not know our panther. I gave him the stripped skin of
one I bought in Philadelphia, and it presents him a new species, which
will appear in his next volumes. I have convinced him that our deer is
not a Chevreuil, and would you believe that many letters to different
acquaintances in Virginia, where this animal is so common, have never
enabled me to present him with a large pair of their horns, a blue and
red skin stuffed, to show him their colors, at different seasons. He
has never seen the horns of what we call the elk. This would decide
whether it be an elk or a deer. I am very much pleased with your
project on the Harmonica, and the prospect of your succeeding in the
application of keys to it. It will be the greatest present which has
been made to the musical world this century, not excepting the
Piano-forte. If its tone approaches that given by the finger as nearly
only as the harpsichord does that of the harp, it will be very
valuable. I have lately examined a foot-bass newly invented here, by
the celebrated Krumfoltz. It is precisely a piano-forte, about ten feet
long, eighteen inches broad, and nine inches deep. It is of one octave
only, from fa to fa. The part where the keys are, projects at the side
in order to lengthen the levers of the keys. It is placed on the floor,
and the harpsichord or other piano-forte is set over it, the foot
acting in concert on that, while the fingers play on this. There are
three unison chords to every note, of strong brass wire, and the lowest
have wire wrapped on them as the lowest in the piano-forte. The chords
give a fine, clear, deep tone, almost like the pipe of an organ. Have
they connected you with our mint? My friend Monroe promised me he would
take care for you in that, or perhaps the establishment of that at New
York may have been incompatible with your residence in Philadelphia. A
person here has invented a method of coining the French écu of six
livres, so as to strike both faces and the edge at one stroke, and
makes a coin as beautiful as a medal. No country has ever yet produced
such a coin. They are made cheaper, too. As yet, he has only made a few
to show the perfection of his manner. I am endeavoring to procure one
to send to Congress as a model for their coinage. They will consider
whether, on establishing a new mint, it will be worth while to buy his
machines, if he will furnish them. A dislocation of my right wrist,
which happened to me about a month after the date of my last letter to
you, has disabled me from writing three months. I do it now in pain,
and only in cases of necessity, or of strong inclination, having as yet
no other use of my hand. I put under your cover a letter from my
daughter to her friend. She joins me in respects to your good mother,
to Mrs. Hopkinson and yourself, to whom I proffer assurances of the
esteem with which I am, dear Sir, your sincere friend and servant.