BICENTENARY OF LINN^US 45 



on the arches of the bridge across the River Seine the raised letter N placed 

 there by Napoleon III, and a few days later to see them incise the letters 

 R. F. (R6publique Fran9aise) where the N had formerly been. 



The value of preserving historic sites or commemorating historic events 

 by indestructible means, such as medals or engraving in stone or metal, 

 has always served as a great benefit to those who were to follow. A simple 

 tablet on the summit of the Jura Mountains tells one when, where and how 

 the great Napoleon crossed those mountains. A tablet in Russia relates 

 that Napoleon entered Russia at this point with seven hundred and twenty 

 thousand men, and less than a year later returned with an army of only a 

 hundred and twenty thousand, having lost six hundred thousand. 



The use of metal and baked tiles for the perpetuation of portraits and 

 historic events forms one of the most feasible and enduring means. It is 

 due to the coins and the medals that have been struck since about the 

 seventh century B.C. that we have an almost unbroken line, for the past 

 twenty-four centuries, of portraits and history; and to Assyrian baked 

 tablets, that wc have some four thousand years of history recorded. 



There should be a most stringent law, a national law, rigidly enforced, 

 for the punishment of any vandal who destroys, either wantonly or for the 

 purpose of loot, any monument, as, for instance, the Andr^ Monument on 

 the banks of the Hudson and the tablet marking the Slocum disaster. 



It is the honor and pleasure of the American Scenic and Historic Preser- 

 vation Society to take part in this historic event, and it is its official function 

 to describe accurately the event in its Annual Report edited by our able 

 Secretary, Edward Hagaman Hall, and published by order of the Legislature 

 of this State. So the record of this event will appear in series with that of 

 the dedication of Stony Point as a park; the re-dedication of the Andr6 

 Monument; the preservation of the Palisades; the McGowan's Pass tablet; 

 more recently the acceptance of the gift of three miles of one of the most 

 beautiful ravines on the continent, containing three fine waterfalls, presented 

 to our State by the Honorable William Pryor Letchworth, for which the 

 Society is to act as a Trustee ; and the State's acquisition of Watkins Glen. 



