gica sive Niew Nederlandt, done in pen and ink, and containing none but Dutch and Indian names.

exhibiting many Indian names which were well nigh, if not entirely lost, are rare and curious; and the opinions of

4. A map of East and West Jersey and the Hudson River, without date, in pen and ink and colored.

5. A general map of the middle British colonies in America, viz., Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island; of Aquanishuonigy, the country of the confederate Indians, comprehending Aquanishuonigy proper, the places of residence, Ohio and Thuchsochruntietheir deer hunting countries, Couchsachrage and Skanladadre-their beaver hunting countries of the lakes Erie, Ontario, and Champlain, and of part of New France, wherein are also shown the ancient and present states of the Indian nations, carefully copied from the original published at Philadelphia by Mr. Lewis Evans, 1775, with some improvements by J. Gibson.

"Novi Belgic-quod nunc Novi Jorck vocatur. Novæque Angliæ et partis Virginiæ accuratissima et novissima delineatur."

7. The original map of Lewis Evans, mentioned above.

8. A map of Virginia according to Capt. John Smith's map, published Anno 1606; also of the adjacent country, called by the Dutch, Niew Nederlandt. Anno 1630, by John Senex, 1735, done in pen and ink.

OTHER MANUSCRIPTS.

9. Mr. Trumbull's opinion in the case of the Fanny, Oct. 26, 1798.

10. Ditto, in the case of the Elizabeth,

5th Nov., 1798.

11. Ditto, in the case of the Neptune, July, 1797.

12. Remarks of Mr. Bond, the British consul, on the commercial policy of Great Britain towa.d the United States; 20th Jan., 1792.

13. Report of a committee of the Lords of the Council on the trade of Great Britain with the United States; Jan., 1791.

Remarks were made by Messrs. Stone and Colcraft respecting the value of these documents. The brief of the New Jersey claim, reciting, as it does, the objections offered on behalf of New York, with the testimony submitted by their commissioners, and containing so complete a chain of historical evidence, is a document of much importance The maps, which were probably used by the commissioners, delineatin the existing state of the country with great exactness, and

Commissioners of 1797-98, as they have never been published, are appropriate additions to the archives of the New York Historical Society. On motion of Mr. Stone, the thanks of the Society were presented to the Hon. William Jay for his valuable donations. It will be remembered that this gentleman presented to the Society, at their last meeting, the original records of the commissioners of 1769 to determine the boundary line between New York and New Jersey, which, with the maps and papers just alluded to, furnish a complete history of that long unsettled and important question.

The other donations to the library during the last month were then announced, and letters were read from the following gentlemen :

One from A. P. Upshur, Secretary of State, transmitting eighteen volumes of documents of the second session of the 27th Congress of the United States. One from James Ombrosi, Esq, U. S consul at Florence, announcing the shipment of two volumes presented by Chevr. Vincent Aulinosi, director of the Museum of Physics and of Natural Philosophy at Florence, to the Historical Society at New York, which Mr. Ombrosi says will be highly interesting to its learned members and attract much attention. A letter from "Count Jacob Gräberg, of Hemso, Phil. Doct., sometime Swedish and Sardinian consul-general-presently chamberlain and chief librarian to his Imperial Tuscany," returning his grateful thanks and Royal Highness the Grand Duke of the honor they had done him in electing to the New York Historical Society, for

ting to them a volume of which he is the him an honorary member, and transmitauthor, on the latest advances in geogra phical science.

The gentlemen nominated at the last meeting were then balloted for, and Wilam B. Hodgson, Esq., of Georgia, and Rev. Robert Davidson, D D., of Brunswich, New Jersey, were elected honorary members.

duced to the Society by Mr. Lawrence, and read in part a learned and interesting raper, entitled an ethnographic view of the African tribes from the Senegal to the Gold coast, the geographical boundaries, their affinities and distinctions of language, government, customs, etc.

Dr. D. Francis Bacon was then intro

We take from t e" Tr bune "newsraper of New York, the following brief sketch of Dr. Bacon's Essay:

"He said that Africa was susceptible of two great ethnographic divisions. That part extending from the Mediterranean south to the 16th degree of north latitude, was occupied by races entirely different from those in the southern part. The true aborigines of Northern Africa were the Berber race, from which Barbary derives its name.

"The Senegal, he stated als, formed the boundary line between the Negro African and the Northern African; that, north of that boundary, the Negro was as much of an exotic as in America: the inhabitants of that region being white, with straight hair, or very slightly crisped: the Arabs and Moors being, apparently, recent intruders. This fact showed that we applied the term African' wrongfully, meaning by it always the Negro.

·

"The Arabs and Moors are confined to the Mediterranean coast, and the long strip on the Atlantic extending to the Senegal. This name (Senegal), he remarked, by the way, to be a corruption of the word 'Zenhegas,' a naine by which the tribes called themselves, and an Arabic word signifying tributaries, as they were formerly tributary to the Sultan. Thus we have two races, inhabiting, for 2,000 years and upward, the same zone, exposed to the same modifying influences, and yet one remaining white, and the other black. This would seem to militate against the doctrine, that climate changes the color. At least, if 2,000 years bring no approximation in the two races, the 4,000 years since the Flood could hardly have wrought the differences that meet our eye on the surface of the earth.

"He spoke of the Joloffs, a very black tribe, inhabiting the south bank of the Senegal, and extending far inland. They are Mahommedans; and he stated, as a singular fact, that the Negro Africans have received their religion, not by conquest, but by the peaceful influence of missionaries. The Mandingoes, still further south, and more inland, he found to be not a maritime people in their occupations, but merchants, herdsmen, mechanics, gold-finders, schoolmasters, missionaries, &c. They are constantly extending their territory by going among the Negro tribes as graziers, teaching them the Arabic, and, through it, converting them to Mahommedanism; and, finally, amalgamating with them by marriage. They are great travellers, going often 500 miles on foot, and thinking it a small matter. They bring nuts and gold to the coast as articles of merchandise The gold is not washed from the dust as by the tribes farther south, but is mined and brought in

richly wrought rings, bracelets, &c, some of them weighing several ounces. He spoke of several other tribes we cannot now notice, and came, at last, to the most interesting of all-the Foulahs. He found them pure Africans, though not so gross as the Negroes generally, while their hair was much more silky. This tribe, with several other African tribes, follow the Quinary system of numerals, instead of decimals, i. e., they begin at five to go back to one, instead of ten; so that five one make six, and five two seven, &c. He said that he had had many long and interesting conversations with them, and they alone, of all the African tribes, manifested a curiosity in the description and condition of other nations. They are devout Mahommedans, yet very tolerant of other religions. But, just as Doctor Bacon had got his audience deeply interested in his delineations of this tribe, he abruptly closed, saying his pressing engagements had prevented his finishing the sketch."

On motion of Mr. De Peyster, the thanks of the Society were presented to Dr. Bacon for his communication, and he was requested to conclude it at the next meeting. The request has been acceded to, and the paper in its completed form will be published.

Dr. Bacon, a year or two since, read a communication on a similar subject before the Royal Geographical Society of London, which is included in their last volume of Transactions. His personal acquaintance with the tribes whom he describes, his familiarity with their dialects, his habits of acute and careful observation, and his full and minute notes made at the time, combine to invest with unusual interest and value his sketches of a people of whom so little is accurately known.

The Chairman presented to the Society the apologies of Mr. Hoffman, and his regrets that unavoidable engagements had obliged him to postpone the reading of his paper on the costume, manners, and customs of the Anglo-American colonists before the Revolution, until next month.

The report of the committee on Indian names being called for, Mr. Colcraft, the Chairman, stated that they had made some progress in their work, but were unable at present to make a satisfactory report of the results of their labors. "If gentlemen," observes the Commercial Advertiser, "feeling an interest in this subject, throughout the State, will interest themselves in the matter, and commit to paper all the Indian names, not yet forgotten, of the streams, and hills, and lakes, and villages in their vicinity, and