NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 91 



member send a piece of Eight per annum to the treasurer, at Philadelphia, to form a 

 common stock, to be disbursed by order of the president with the consent of the majo- 

 rity of the members that can conveniently be consulted thereupon, to such persons and 

 places where and by whom the experiments are to be made, and otherwise, as there shall 

 be occasion; of which disbursements an exact account shall be kept, and communicated 

 yearly to every member. 



That at the first meetings of the members at Philadelphia, such rules be formed for 

 regulating their meetings and transactions for the general benefit as shall be convenient 

 and necessary; to be afterwards changed and improved as there shall be occasion, 

 wherein due regard is to be had to the advice of distant members. 



That at the end of every year, collections be made and printed, of such experiments, 

 discoveries, improvements, &c. as may be thought of public advantage ; and that every 

 member have a copy sent him. 



That the business and duty of the secretary be, to receive all letters intended for the 

 society, and lay them before the president and members at their meetings ; to abstract, 

 correct, and methodize such papers, &c. as require it, and as he shall be directed to do 

 by the president, after they have been considered, debated, and digested in the society 

 to enter copies thereof in the society's books, and make out copies for distant members - 

 to answer their letters by direction of the president, and keep records of all material 

 transactions of the society, &c. 



Benjamin Franklin, the writer of this Proposal, offers himself to serve the societv a? 

 their secretary, till they shall be provided with one more capable. 



Philadelphia, May 14, 1743." 



NOTE G. 



The appearance of the lands belonging to the Holland Company, particularly from 

 Batavia to Lake Erie, furnishes strong indications of the recession of that lake. Near 

 Vendeventer's tavern, in Niagara county, about twenty-two miles from the lake, there is 

 a perpendicular descent which is said to extend from the Genesee river to Black Rock ; 

 between it and the Stone Ridge, which runs from the Genesee river to Lewiston, there is 

 an immense valley, twenty miles across, called Tonewanto Valley. The precipice at 

 Vandeventer's is from one hundred to two hundred feet, composed principally of limestone 



