A Method of collecting Salt Petre from the Air which is talked of here is this. Take of Lime and Ashes equal Quantities, and of horse dung a Quantity equal to both the Ashes and Lime, mix them together into a Mortar, with this Mortar and a Quantity of long Straw to keep it together build two Walls Eighteen Inches thick, and three feet high, about four feet asunder. Then make a Center and turn and an Arch over cemicircularly from the Top of one Wall to that of the other, and this Arch may be made Eighteen Inches thick too. These Walls 243with the Arch over them, may be continued to any length you please. There must be a shed over it to keep off the Rain, and the Arch must be wett every Day with Urine. This, in summer, will collect so much salt Petre that an ounce may be extracted from every Pound of the Walls in three Months. In Winter it will make as fast provided you keep a Fire at one End of the Arch, that the Wind may blow the Fire and Smoke under the Arch, and keep it from freezing.

This is one Method as it is affirmed by Gentlemen here.

Sulphur, Nitre, and Lead We must have of our own. We must not depend upon Navigation for these. I wish the Committee of the General Court for Lead and Salt would transmit their Discoveries to me. I dont know whether you are one of that Committee or not.

Pray inform me if Obrian and Carghill1 were or were not commissioned by some Vote of the general Court, and whether they cant be put into the Continental service. An order is gone to Genl. Washington to that Purpose if it can be done.

Governor Ward of Rhode Island has a son about five and twenty years old who has been so far carried away in the Absence of his Father, with a Zeal for his Country as to inlist into the Artillery as a private.1 He never Said a Word to the Governor about, or he would have had a Commission. A younger Brother, who solicited of his father Permission to enter the service, was made a Captain.2 Now it is a Pity, that this young Gentlemans Patriotism, should not be encouraged and rewarded, and it is a greater Pity that an Elder Brother should be a private soldier in an Army where his younger Brother is an officer and a Captain—and a greater Pity still that a Governor of a Province and a worthy Member of the Continental Congress, and the Constant Chairman of our Committee of the whole House, Should have a deserving son in the Army in the Ranks, when Multitudes of others in Commissions have no such Pretensions.

I wish you would mention this Matter at Head Quarters and see if any Thing can be done for him. The Governor had no Expectations I believe that I should interest myself in this Matter, but the Fact 244coming accidentally to my Knowledge, I determined to write about it immediately, and I knew not how to set the Thing in Motion.

I write every Thing to you, who know how to take me. You dont Expect Correctness nor Ceremony from me. When I have any Thing to write and one Moment to write it in I scratch it off to you, who dont expect that I should dissect these Things, or reduce them to correct Writing. You must know I have not Time for that.