AUDUBON'S FAMILY IN AMERICA 307 



would have been an hundred-fold greater than that of 

 the few paltry tons of metallic copper which they were 

 supposed to represent. Mr. Ruthven Deane, whose re- 

 searches in the field of "Auduboniana" have added 

 greatly to this subject, has given a history of these 

 plates, 19 and of the interesting way in which a remnant 

 came to be snatched, as it were, from the very mouth of 

 the furnace, through the persistence and enthusiasm of 

 a lad of fourteen. To follow this writer's account, it 

 seems that shortly after the death of her son John, Mrs. 

 Audubon sold the copper plates to a firm in New York, 

 where they remained until about 1865, stored in the 

 warehouse of Messrs. Phelps, Dodge & Company. Not 

 far from that time the plates were sorted and a few were 

 given away ; the large remainder was sent to a brass and 

 copper company, of which William E. Dodge was presi- 

 dent, at Ansonia, Connecticut. How some of these 

 were fortunately rescued, in about the year 1873, is told 

 in a letter to Mr. Deane from Mr. Charles A. Cowles, of 

 Ansonia : 



At that time I was about fourteen years old. I was be- 

 ginning the study of taxidermy, and was naturally deeply in- 

 terested in birds. I happened to be at the refinery watching 

 the process of loading one of the furnaces, and noticed on one 

 of the sheets of copper that a man was throwing into the 

 furnace, what appeared to me to be the picture of a bird's 

 foot. I took the plate from him, cleaned it with acid, and 

 thereupon discovered the engraving, or as I termed it, the pic- 

 ture, of a bird (Plate cvi, Black Vulture), I made an im- 

 mediate but unsuccessful request to the foreman of the furnace 

 not to melt the plates; and then I appealed to the superin- 

 tendent, but without avail. I next brought the matter to the 

 general manager of the concern, my father, from whom I re- 



18 Ruthven Deane (Bibl. No. 225), The Auk, vol. xxv (1908). 



