It sometimes seems there are few natural phenomena for which Benjamin Franklin was not the first to provide a scientific explanation. His curiosity appears to have been insatiable, his powers of observation acute, and his intellect inventively original. By his accomplishments we find ourselves relegated to the ranks of the astounded rustics contemplating Oliver Goldsmith's village schoolmaster:
And still they gazed, and still their wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
Franklin, a printer by trade, was born in Boston in 1706, and became sufficiently prosperous early in life to be able to devote most of his time to other interests. One of these was meteorology, and among his many contributions to the science he provided the key to the mobile nature of a hurricane.
In November, 1743, a violent north-easterly storm, the fringes of a former Caribbean hurricane, hit Franklin's home in Philadelphia, and inconveniently obscured his view of an eclipse. Franklin learned later that the eclipse had been clearly visible in Boston before the storm arrived. From this he realised that the zone of northeasterly winds must have moved from south to north, from Philadelphia to Boston, in the opposite direction to the wind itself.
Six years later, Franklin verified his theory by tracking the progress of another hurricane from North Carolina along the eastern seaboard to New England, establishing the notion that a storm moved steadily along some apparently predetermined path. As with so many of Franklin's notions, it was an idea years ahead of its time; not until the mid-19th century was it commonly accepted that all storms are circular wind systems, and that they move bodily from one place to another.
But Franklin, as we know, also led an active public life. In the 1760s and early 1770s he spent long periods in Europe, where he was the London agent for several of the colonies. It was a troubled era in relations between Britain and its American colonies, and Franklin's task was to represent the American case to the British establishment and public. In 176575 he published no fewer than 126 newspaper articles promoting the American view on contemporary controversies.
During one such sojourn he had an opportunity to cross the Irish Sea. He landed on our shores on October 5th, 1771, and would have been in Ireland 230 years ago today. During his short visit he met virtually everyone of influence and also spent a day observing proceedings in the House of Commons, now the Bank of Ireland.