accident may happen again." I sincerely wish you may in this instance be mistaken. I think I have candour enough to excuse what has happened, but I am not Stoic enough not to regret the disappointment every time I think on it, and I cannot bear to think a repetition of it admissible into the rank of probabilities.

The specularis I sent you was the best I then had. The man by whom I expect a fresh supply is not yet returned from his journey. I was mistaken as to the place where it is found. There is indeed some of it at Boscawen, but the grand magazine of it is at a mountain in the Township of Grafton, in the County of Grafton, and not far from Dartmouth College. It was discovered (as I am told) thus: A hunter, being benighted, took shelter from an approaching storm in a cavern of a mountain. In the morning, he found his lodging-place surrounded with a shining substance. He pulled off pieces of great bigness, one of them as big as the leaf of a table (this was a comparison used by my informant), and fastened it to the top of a young tree which he bent down near the mouth of the cave, as a mark to guide him to the place again. The spot where he lodged has not yet been found, but on some other part of the same range of mountains they have found the same substance, to obtain which they are obliged to blow a flint rock, whereby the pieces they get are so broke as not to afford specimens so large as what the hunter found.* Since I wrote you, I have been at Lebanon, where the vitriol stone is found in great abundance. It is a bluish, shelly stone, easily separated with the hand, and reducible to powder. Some pieces which I took out of the wall of a cellar from whence an house had been lately removed were all over crusted with the exuded salts, of the same colour with the best copperas. There is a mixture of sulphur with it. The exuded matter melts in the fire, and after a while emits a blue flame. The smell of sulphur is as strong over the cellar as if a gun had just been fired. I have a peck of the stone in the house, and intend to lixiviate it when I get time. Some specimens of it are gone to our newly established academy.# My worthy friend, the Rev. Mr. Little,! of Wells, who is a member of that body, was here yesterday. He tells me he has wrote to you for some information relative to steel furnaces in Pennsylvania. I wish you might be acquainted with him. He is a sensible, ingenious man, well versed in natural history and ehimistry, and will be of service to you in your Geographical Plan. He had with him a piece of barbarous antiquity, which he is going to present to the cabinet, viz., a stone about 3 feet long, in the shape of a serpent, with a serpent's head carved in a rude manner on one end. It was found, the head downwards, at some depth in a salt marsh, in the town of Wells, by a man who was digging a ditch. How it came there is a problem as yet unresolved. The ditcher called it an Indian pestle, and used it as a whetstone. But Mr. Little seized it as an idol, and in that character it is to be laid up in the new museum.

If Mr. Bartram has forgot the Siberian barley (an account of which I certainly saw in the newspaper from which the extract was made, which I sent you), it is a sign that the cultivation of it is not an object of attention, and therefore I beg you would give yourself no further trouble about it.

The United States Magazine, if no better than the number you sent me, is indeed a paltry performance. I thank you for it however, as it contained the Constitution of South Carolina, which I had not before seen.

You are going to " dig snow at the Plains" this winter again. I wish you would spend part of it here. Mr. Little told me of some Province of Maine records at Saco which you have not seen. Should you incline to visit them, you must make me a.visit by the way.

Mrs. B. joins me in cordial salutations, and I am, dear

sir, with unfeigned respect,

Your sincere and obliged friend,

Jeremy Belknap. To Ebenezer Hazard, Esq.

HAZARD TO BELKNAP.

Philadelphia, Dec. 2, 1780.

Well, my dear Sir, I think that we have fairly settled the affair of the disappointment! May you never meet with any more of any kind! I have been three weeks setting out for New Hampshire, which has prevented my answering your favour of October 25th sooner; but here I am yet. Next Wednesday is now the time fixed on for my departure. I expect to be a month on the road to Jamaica Plain. The account of the discovery of the Lapis specularis is curious and entertaining. I wish the hunter had taken better observations. Remember, I have a claim upon you for a specimen of the vitriol stone. Mr. Little obliged me very much by sending me some of the asbestos. Several who have seen it say it is far superior to any thing of the kind they have met with. I have answered his kind letter, but cannot get the information he wants. Those who possess it will not communicate it: they sacrifice public good to their own interest. I have seen in England many such stones as you mention, but I think none of the serpents there have heads. They are very numerous on stones with which the houses in a country town (through which I rode, but forget the name) are built, and are considered as a natural curiosity. I think Salmon mentions them in his geography. I hear nothing further about Siberian barley, though I have made further inquiries. I hear nothing new; and, indeed, could hardly hear it, if there were any thing, for I have been so immersed in a new employment that I have visited the post-office but once a week for some time past. This is now nearly at an end.

Make Mrs. B. a proper return for her cordial salutations, and rely on the sincerest friendship of

Eben. Hazard.

BELKNAP TO HAZARD.

Doyer, December 18,1780.

What is the matter with my friend Hazard? Are you sick again? Or have the Stratford Tories in robbing the mail deprived me of your letters? The last I had was dated the 2nd of October, to which I replied before the month was out. I am now uncertain whether to direct to you at Eoxbury or at Philadelphia, but shall send it to the care of Jonathan Hastings, who will I hope find out the place of your residence. After having been so long favoured with your correspondence, you may well think an abstinence of above two months is extremely disagreeable. I beg to be relieved of my anxious apprehensions as speedily as possible, for I am really afraid you have got a relapse. The man by whom I expected a fresh supply of the specularis did not bring any. When he was up in that part of the country, they were all in an alarm on account of the incursion of the enemy, which you have heard of, at Royalston.* This prevented the people from going out to the mountain, as they intended this fall. If ever I get any more of it, you shall not be forgotten. Last week I saw some very fine free-stone, which was found at a mountain called Bonabeag within sight of this town, and about 18 miles distant. It has been made into grindstones, and is capable of being sawed into hearths, chimney backs, &c. It is found in clefts of 3, 5, or 7 inches thick, and the thickness is regular throughout. Thus the treasures which Nature has deposited in America come daily into view, and I doubt not we shall find the New World as well stored with all useful materials as the Old.

With anxious concern for your welfare, and the full re-establishment of your health, I am, dear sir, Your affectionate friend,

Jeremy Belknap.

Mrs. B. desires her respects.

To Ebekezer Hazard, Esq,

HAZARD TO BELKNAP.

Portsmouth, February 5,1781.

Mr Dear Sir, — I received your two favours of December 18th and 25th last Saturday week at Boston, and would have answered them before, but knew I should come on thus far (if not see you at Dover) about this time. I thank you for the vitriol stone (is it not copperas ?) and the hint about free-stone, and s6nd you some newspapers in return. No, I think you will not see me this winter; for however great my friendship for you is, as well as my anxiety for an interview with you, I cannot reconcile it with my conscience to go to Dover now,