564 CIRCULAR LETTER OF THE 



manufactures, commerce, education, learning, population, occupations, 

 police, manners, morals, religious principals, ;j geography, history, 

 geology, mineralogy, zoology, botany, and diseases ; it proposes to ex- 

 amine, with anatomical accuracy, the internal structure of society, to 

 illustrate that most important science, political philosophy, and to collect 

 such useful and practical information on the various subjects connected 

 with individual and social prosperity, as may have a tendency to pro- 

 mote the solid and permanent interests of America. 



Sir John Sinclair published a statistical account of Scotland, drawn 

 up from the communications of the ministers of the different parishes, 

 made to him in consequence of a variety of queries circulated among 

 them, for the purpose of elucidating the natural history and political 

 state of that country. Scotland is divided into nine hundred and fifty 

 parochial districts ; in less than eighteen months from the time of cir- 

 culating the queries among the clergy, reports were received from 

 above one half the number ; in three or four years the whole work was 

 completed, and it has been emphatically said of this great survey, " that 

 no publication of equal information and curiosity, has appeared in Great 

 Britain since Doomsday-book, and that from the ample and authentic 

 facts which it records, it must be; resorted to by every future statesman, 

 philosopher, and divine, as the best basis that has ever yet appeared for 

 political speculation." 



This state contains forty-seven counties, and above five hundred 

 towns ; we are persuaded that every town contains a sufficient number 

 of intelligent men, to furnish the information required, and that nothing 

 more is necessary than for them to devote to this important subject 

 those few hours which can always be spared from the ordinary occupa- 

 tions of life. The state is atlantic and western : it borders on the 

 ocean, and some of the great lakes ; the greatest rivers in North 

 America flow, and vast chains of mountains pass through it. In extent, 



