250 



SCIENCE, 



[Vol. YL, No, 137. 



relying too implicitly upon the statute-books for data ; 

 as the mere fact of a law being among the statutes 

 of a particular state is of little importance unless 

 one knows whether the law was executed or not. 



Mr. Justin Winsor then referred to an Italian porto- 

 lano of the sixteenth century, which had recently been 

 acquired by the Carter-Brown library of Providence, 

 as probably the only specimen of an early sea-atlas 

 now preserved in an American library. It has five 

 maps showing the American continent, two of which 

 illustrate the theory which made North America and 

 Asia identical. The atlas resembles what is known 

 as the Charles V. portolano, and is also like another 

 now in the Riccordiana in Florence. The dates of 

 these, as understood, led Mr. Winsor to place this 

 new specimen somewhere between 1540 and 1550; 

 and the condition of geographical knowledge shown in 

 it comports with such a supposition, a due allowance 

 for the errors and limitations always found in charts 

 of so early a date being made. After, Mr. H. Tuttle 

 of Cornell presented a long bibliography of materials 

 for the history of the reign of Frederick the Great of 

 Prussia, which have appeared since Carlyle wrote, 

 and which may be considered as justifying a new life 

 of that potentate. Professor Ephraim Emerton, in a 

 ten-minute report on the value of Janssen's History 

 of the Grcrman people during the reformation period, 

 aroused considerable interest. President White 

 agreed with Dr. Emerton as to the deceptive meth- 

 ods of presentation adopted by Janssen, and com- 

 pared it to a history of the late civil war, in which 

 the main accent should be laid upon a few over-fer- 

 vid utterances of Garrison, Phillips, and Pillsbury; 

 upon Mr. Seward's false prophecies, Mr. Lincoln's 

 story-telling, the personal habits of some union gen- 

 erals, and the like. Prof. E. B. Andrews, while agree- 

 ing with the previous speakers, said that such books 

 were useful as throwing a side-light upon the real 

 character of the reformers and the reformation. In 

 concluding, he warned all students who read German 

 books, or who go to Germany to study, to beware of 

 the dogmatic tone of many German historians. Pro- 

 fessor Gold win Smith also contributed to the discus- 

 sion. 



The next morning the Rev. Dr. M. C. Tyler read an 

 abstract of a paper by the bishop of Missouri on ' The 

 Louisiana purchase, and its influence upon the Amer- 

 ican system.' The abstract showed that the paper 

 was one of great value; but as Mr. Henry Adams 

 remarked, the subject was one that could be prop- 

 erly treated only in volumes, and not in a single 

 essay, even so complete as the one just presented. 

 He thought, however, that more stress should have 

 been laid on the fact that the acquisition of Louisi- 

 ana, by an extreme use of the treaty-making power, 

 did, in fact, create a new union upon a broader basis 

 than the original union as defined by the constitu- 

 tion of 1787. Judge Douglas Campbell and Mr. Rufus 

 King followed in the discussion. 



Mr. John Addison Porter then read an abstract of 

 an essay, which will appear shortly in the Johns 

 Hopkins' series, on the origin and administration of 

 the city of Washington. Particular attention was 



paid to a critical analysis of the 'Shepherd ring.* 

 He added that the federal city and district owe their 

 present names to the commissioners who served with 

 Washington in planning the city. 



The evening session was opened with a discussion 

 of the problem of municipal government, until Mr. 

 Schuyler declared, that, in his opinion, such discus- 

 sions were hardly within the province of an historical 

 association. This was followed by a number of re- 

 ports ; and then Mr. Irving Elting of Poughkeepsie, 

 the first announced speaker of the evening, read a 

 well-written abstract of a paper on the Dutch-village 

 communities of the Hudson River, which he thought 

 exhibited, during colonial times, many of the peculi- 

 arities of the primitive German mark. The towns 

 of Hurley and New Paltz were instanced as typical 

 communities. In the former, the common lands 

 were divided so as to give mere residents, as well as 

 free-holders, a share in the allotment ; while in New 

 Paltz, the ancient institution of the ' Twelve men ' 

 survived even into the present century. The remain- 

 der of this session was occupied with a discussion 

 of the origin of vlie, bowery, and kindred words. 

 The latter, Mr. Elting said, meant simply ' home-lot.' 

 By this time it was so late that the association ad- 

 journed, after having disposed of but one number of 

 the programme as announced on the posters. 



The next morning Dr. Josiah Royce gave the sub- 

 stance of a chapter from his forthcoming work on Cal- 

 ifornia. He demonstrated by documents which have 

 been discovered by Mr. H. H. Bancroft and himself, 

 that the original purpose of our government was to 

 get Calif ornia from Mexico through peaceful intrigue, 

 and by the act of its inhabitants. To this plan the 

 operations of Captain Fremont were in actual opposi- 

 tion ; although the speaker did not in this paper un- 

 dertake to criticise Captain Fremont's acts, nor to ex- 

 plain them. After some remarks by Mr. W. A. Mow- 

 ry, on the influence which the acts of the agents of the 

 Hudson-bay company may have had on our govern- 

 ment in its dealings with the Californians, Dr. J. F. 

 Jameson of Johns Hopkins read a paper advocating 

 the more careful study of the constitutional and politi- 

 cal history of the several states. Dr. E. Channing fol- 

 lowed with a few suggestions as to the value of the 

 study of the historical geography of the territory com- 

 prised within the present limits of the United States. 



Our reporter was not present at the evening ses- 

 sion, but, through the kindness of Mr. E. Schuyler, is 

 able to give a brief account of the latter' s paper on 

 ' Materials for American history in foreign ar- 

 chives.' It seems that the increased study of original 

 documents during the last fifty years has led to great 

 reforms in the management of the European state- 

 paper ofiices, which are now well arranged, and easily 

 accessible to students. Various nations, especially 

 England and France, have filled in the gaps in their 

 own collections by copies from papers preserved else- 

 where. The reverse of all this Mr. Schuyler de- 

 clared to be true of our own state department, which 

 has the distinction of keeping its archives less acces- 

 sible than those of any European nation, — an asser- 

 tion which was borne out by Dr. Royce' s relation of 



