- oo December 



greatly valued here. Some people pretended to 

 foretel that the enfuing winter would not be a 

 fevere one : this they conjedtured from having 

 feen wild geefe and other migratory birds go 

 to the fouth in O&ober, but return a few days 

 ago in great numbers, and even pafs on further 

 to the north. Indeed the enfuing winter was 

 one of the moft temperate ones. 



SEVERAL perfons likewife affured us that 

 we fhould have rain before to-morrow night. 

 The reafon they gave for this conjecture was, 

 that this morning at fun-rifing, from their 

 windows they had feen every thing very plainly 

 on the other fide of the river, fo that it appeared 

 much nearer than ufual, and that this commonly 

 foreboded rain. This prefage was likewife pretty 

 exactly fulfilled. 



THE Indians, before the arrival of the Euro- 

 peans, had no notion of the ufe of iron, though 

 that metal was abundant in their country. How- 

 ever thew knew in fome meafure how to make 

 ufe of copper. Some Dutchmen who lived here, 

 ftill preferved the old account ameng them, that 

 their anceftors on their firft fettling in New York 

 had met with many of the Indians, who had tobacco 

 pipes of copper, and who made them underftand 

 by (igns, that they got them in the neighbour- 

 hood : afterwards the fine copper mine was dif- 

 covered, upon the fecond river between Eliza- 

 beth-town and New York* On digging in this 

 mine, the people met with holes worked in the 

 mountain, out of which fome copper had been 

 taken, and they found even fome tools, which 

 the Indians probably made ufe of, when they en- 

 deavoured 



