NOTE. 



Thb following Letters first appeared in the columns 0/ a 

 newspaper during the year 1820. They attracted much atten- 

 tion at that time, and were copied and read with great avidity. 

 They are evidently the production of no ordinary mind, and 

 hence curiosity was awakened to discover the learned traveller, 

 whose acute perception and just delineation had opened to our 

 view some of the hidden beauties of our state. It is not for the 

 publisher to say how far the opinion of the literary community 

 was correct in ascribing these letters to an eminent statesman, 

 whose researches in science might well justify such a suspicion. 

 They are now collected in a volume and offered to the public, 

 ft"om a conviction that their merits entitle them to a form 

 adapted to the libraries of this reading people. 



