ancient Egyptians. The sixth illustration defines the rank of the persons killed-they were two Arikara chiefs-and shows that Running-Antelope was wounded in the left thigh. This was in 1856. The scars are said to be still distinct upon the person of the chief, showing that the arrow really passed through the thigh. The seventh illustration shows how an Arikara Indian was killed in 1857, by being struck with a bow, the greatest insult that can be offered by an enemy. In such instances the victor counts

PICTOGRAPH NO. 7.-KILLING BY STRIKING THE ENEMY IN THE FACE.

one coup when relating his exploits in the Council Chamber. The eighth sketch informs us of the killing of an Indian in 1859, and the capture of a horse; the ninth describes the killing of two Arikara hunters in 1859; and the tenth, the killing of five of the enemy in one day, in 1863. The dotted line indicates the trail which Running-Antelope followed, and when the Indians discovered they were pursued, they took shelter in an isolated copse of shrubbery, where they were dispatched at leisure. The eleventh and last illustration chronicles the killing of an Arikara in 1865. Mr. Mallory

PICTOGRAPH NO. 9.-KILLING OF TWO ARIKARA HUNTERS.

PICTOGRAPH NO. 1O. KILLING OF FIVE INDIANS.

says that the Arikara are delineated as wearing the top-knot of hair, similar to that practiced by the Absaroka, the most inveterate enemies of the Sioux; as the word Palláni for Arikara is applied to all enemies, the Crow custom may have been depicted as a generic mark. The practice of painting the forehead red, also an Absaroka custom, serves to distinguish the pictures as individuals of one of the two tribes.

PICTOGRAPH NO. 11.-THE KILLING OF AN ARIKARA.

MINOR TOPICS

H. C. VAN SCHAACK'S HISTORICAL TREASURES

EDITOR OF MAGAZINE OF AMERICAN HISTORY:

I perceive that you have published, in the August number of your Magazine, a brief notice of my collection of Revolutionary Manuscripts. Had my esteemed friend who wrote that article informed me that he intended to do so and to publish it, I should have given him opportunity for preparing a fuller description. As he only made a brief friendly call, at my house, of less than half an hour, when I showed him my work, you will perceive how limited was his opportunity for examining the contents of three large folio volumes containing about nine hundred pages of matter. His brief account is correct as far as it goes. I deem it proper, however, under the circumstances, and that it should not subject me to the charge of vanity, to place before your readers a more complete sketch of a work which has been to me a labor of love, at intervals of leisure, for half a century. The general title of it is:

"An Autographic History of the American Revolution, consisting of Original Letters and other Writings of Revolutionary Characters; Illustrated by Engravings, and elucidated by Historical and Biographical Articles in Print; comprised in Three Folio Volumes. Compiled by Henry C. Van Schaack, Author of the Life of Peter Van Schaack, LL.D."

Irrespective of its engravings, and numerous Revolutionary documents to which are subscribed a large number of original signatures, and irrespective also of very many single autographic signatures of eminent Revolutionary characters, and of a large amount of selected historical and biographical matter in print incorporated in these three volumes, there are perfect letters in the handwriting of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and the two Revolutionary boys-John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson; all seven of whom successively became Presidents of the United States, in the first century of our existence as a nation.

In these precious volumes are also preserved perfect letters of Benjamin Franklin, General Richard Montgomery, John Jay, John Marshall, Bushrod Washington, John Hancock, William Livingston, James Bowdoin, Joseph Hawley, William Bollan, Philip Livingston, William Bayard, General Heath, William Lee, Richard Stockton, James Duane, General Philip Schuyler, Peter Van Brugh Livingston, General James Warren, Jonathan Trumbull, John Haring, Thomas Lynch, Andrew Allen, Francis Lewis, General Pierre Van Cortland, William Carmichael, Christopher P. Yates, Theodore Sedgwick, General Horatio Gates, Jacob Cuyler, Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, Joseph Bloomfield, Thomas McKean, Jeremiah Wads

VOL XVIII.-No. 3-17

worth, Robert Troup, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, George Clinton, General James Clinton, De Witt Clinton, Moses Younglove, Henry Laurens, General Alexander Scammell, Morgan Lewis, William Popham, William Whipple, General John Sullivan, John Sloss Hobart, William Irvine, General Nathaniel Greene, Samuel Huntington, Elbridge Gerry, Joseph Reed, Richard Frothingham, Charles Pinckney, General Henry Knox, Elias Boudinot, William Paca, Timothy Pickering, Oliver Wolcott, Governeur Morris, Benjamin Harrison, Benjamin Rush, Richard Henry Lee, Egbert Benson, Robert Yates, John Dickinson, Samuel Jones, Samuel Osgood, Rufus King, Samuel Huntington, John Pintard, Nicholas Gilman, General Benjamin Lincoln, Arthur Lee, Robert R. Livingston, Robert Morris, Joel Barlow, Baron Steuben, William Eustis, Charles Carroll, Peter R. Livingston, Samuel Adams, Jedediah Morse, Jeremy Belknap, Gunning Bedford, General Anthony Wayne, Thomas Mifflin, Colonel Richard Varick, Brockholst Livingston, Matthew Clarkson, James McHenry, Isaiah Thomas, Aaron Ogden, Henry A. S. Dearborn, John Langdon, John Armstrong, La Fayette, and John Brown; also letters of Henry Cruger, Jr., the colleague of Edmund Burke in the British Parliament.

To this long list many other worthy names could be added. But I must here give place to a patriotic letter written by General Benedict Arnold a short time before his great fight at Saratoga :

I have to beg the favor of your repeatedly sending out small Scouts No. West from your place to discover the motions & numbers of the enemy if any should attempt to reinforce the enemy in this quarter from Fort George or Edwards; & that you will give me the earliest intelligence of any discovery made, which will mutch oblige,

Your most Obt Humble Serv1.

To the General Committee of Schenectady."

B. Arnold.

In this place, most opportunely for the order of my history, comes an interesting letter written by Colonel M. B. Whiting, in August, 1777, to Mr. Barclay, of Albany, in which the Colonel reverently exclaims: "For the successes of our Arms at Bennington & Fort Schuyler let God have all the Praise!"

I possess letters written by the three British officers, General Burgoyne, H. Watson Powell, and William Phillipps after their capture at Saratoga. A long letter is preserved, written by Samuel Holden Parsons, whose intercourse with the British has only recently come to light. He was an early emigrant to the Great West and was drowned in a Western river. I have the original paper, in the handwriting of Colonel John Brown, addressed to General Gates, in which Colonel Brown arraigns Arnold for various gross and treasonable acts; and other papers in regard to the difficulties between Brown and Arnold.

Here are letters also from Beverley Robinson, Oliver Delancey, Sir William and