3bO CIRCULAR LETTER OF THE 



obtained from the Indians, whether by conquest or purchase ; and the 

 nature of the grants or patents of land ; the government from whence 

 they proceeded ; the latitude and longitude of any remarkable place in 

 your county. 



2. The Indians that formerly inhabited your town or county ; their 

 number, condition, customs, manners, language, mythology, battles, 

 burying places, monuments, forts, weapons, utensils, and any other 

 traces of their settlement ; their history, migrations, traditions, charac- 

 ter, trade, controversies, wars, and treaties ; their names of places, and 

 the signification, and their present state. 



3. Nature of the soil, mountains, hills, valleys, plains, caverns, rocks, 

 lakes, ponds, rivers, islands, streams, cataracts, mineral and medicinal 

 springs, aqueducts ; the changes in mountains, lakes, rivers, and 

 streams ; the quality of water ; the nature and composition of rocks, 

 and their position ; whether in strata or otherwise ; inclined, or hori- 

 zontal ; the strata observed in digging wells ; petrifications, shells. 



4. Mines, minerals, fossils, quarries of stone, and particularly flint, 

 slate, soap-stone, marble, lime-stone, marl, gypsum, sulphur, iron, cop- 

 per, lead, silver, plumbago, salt, nitre, and ochres of various kinds ; 

 their distance from navigable water. 



5. Trees of different kinds, and their uses for ornament, fuel, fences, 

 house and ship building ; the original growth of wood, and the varia- 

 tions on successive cuttings ; whether plenty or scarce, increasing or 

 decreasing, and the causes ; the best means of increasing the quantity, 

 and improving the quality. 



6. Beside wood, other fuel, such as coal, turf or peat ; the quantity 

 and quality of each ; distance from navigable water ; increase or de- 

 crease, and price of the different kinds. 



7. The state of agriculture ; the price of land, of provisions, and of 

 labour ; the kinds of grain produced, quantity on an acre, and total 



