CHAP. VIL] MUSEUM. 101 



public lectures, which are much encouraged here, and are effective 

 means of stimulating the minds of all classes, especially the mid 

 dle and lower, they furnish essential aid. Among other specimens 

 of natural history, too large to be conveniently accommodated in 

 any private house, I was glad of an opportunity of examining the 

 great jaw-bones arid teeth of the Squalus serridens, from the 

 South Seas, which reminded me, by their serrated outline, of the 

 teeth of the fossil Zeuglodon, hereafter to be mentioned. I was 

 well pleased to observe that the shells of the neighboring coast 

 had not been neglected, for people are often as ignorant of the 

 natural history of the region they inhabit, especially of the lakes, 

 rivers, and the sea, as of the flora and fauna of the antipodes. 

 Many curious log-books of the early sea-captains of this port, who 

 ventured in extreme ignorance of geography on distant voyages, 

 are preserved here, and attest the daring spirit of those hardy 

 navigators. Some of them sailed to India by the Cape, without 

 a single chart or map, except that small one of the world, on 

 Mercator s projection, contained in Guthrie s Geography. They 

 used no sextants, but, working their dead-reckoning with chalk 

 on a plank, guessed at the sun s position with their hand at noon. 

 They had usually no capital, but started with a few beads and 

 trinkets, and in exchange for these trifles often obtained the skins 

 of sea-otters in the Oregon territory, each worth no less than 100 

 dollars. They also obtained sandal-wood in the Sandwich Islands, 

 and bartered these and other articles in China for tea. On such 

 slender means, and so lately as after the separation of the colonies 

 from England, at a time when there was not a single American 

 ship of war in the Indian or Chinese seas to protect their com 

 merce, did many merchants of Boston and Salem lay the founda 

 tions of the princely fortunes they now enjoy. 



In the course of the day we visited the court-house at Salem, 

 where they keep the warrants issued by the judges to the high- 

 sheriff in the years 1692 and 1693, for the execution of witches 

 condemned to death. Here we read the depositions of witnesses, 

 attesting such facts as that heifers and horses had died, and that 

 cats had been taken ill, and that a man had been pierced by a 

 knitting-needle to the depth of four inches, the wound healing 



