119 



The principal part of the evening was occupied' in the 

 reading of a paper by Mr. Samuel P. Fowler of Danvers, 

 on Cotton Mather. The following abstract of the same is 

 here appended. 



After the excitement in 1692, caused by the Salem Witch- 

 craft, had subsided, and the government had made some 

 restitution to those persons or their families who had suifered 

 by the delusion. Dr. Cotton Mather turned his attention^ 

 amongst other subjects , to the quiet and peaceful study of 

 the natural productions of New England. Our knowledge 

 of his researches in nature was obtained by reading the Lou- 

 don Philosophical Transactions, Vol. 29, for the years 1714, 

 1715, and 1716. The letters composing the articles in this 

 journal were prepared and sent by Dr. Mather to Dr. Wood- 

 ward and Mr. Waller of London, for examination before 

 publication. Upon the receipt of Mather's letters, the Sec- 

 retaries of the Society found them to be a strange mixture 

 of incredible occurrences, totally unfit for a Pliilosophical 

 journal. They accordingly refused to publish several of 

 them, and gave but short extracts from others. 



The first letter, under date of Boston, Nov. 17, 1712, was 

 addressed to Dr. Woodward, in which Dr. Mather brought 

 forward in a way peculiar to himself, his Biblia Americanay 

 now lying neglected in the possession of the Massachusetts 

 Historical Society, no man as yet having been found who 

 would venture to publish this ponderous manuscript in two 

 volumes folio.* The concealing from his friend, Dr. Wood- 

 ward, the author of this work, and recommending it to some 

 generous Macaenas, (the patron of the ancient poets,) is 

 highly characteristic of Dr. Cotton Mather. In order to en- 

 list Dr. Woodward in the publication of the Biblia Americana^ 

 Mather speaks of its containing large philosophical remarks 

 taken out of Natural Historians, and gave him a specimen 

 of the work in a note on Genesis, chap. 6, verse 4, relating 

 to giants seen in the days of Noah ; and as proof that they 

 once existed, relates the finding of bones in Albany, New^ 

 England, seventeen feet long, which he supposed to be hu- 



*We examined the Biblia Americana, and found it to consist of six parts in folio, 

 with its pages crowded with the small handwriting of Mather, and apparently pre- 

 pared (or publication. 



