Ben Franklin possessed one of the greatest private libraries of the late 18th Century. And soon after he died, most of its books were sold off, scattered like autumn leaves on the cobblestone streets of Philadelphia. The contents of the library remained relatively unknown for more than 100 years. With renewed interest by historians in the twentieth century, the library’s contents have been painstakingly pieced back together–at least on paper. But how did it disappear? And how did historians discover the clues that lets us know what was probably in it? And how many more volumes are still out there, waiting to be discovered? That’s what we’ll cover in this Episode of the Frog of History.