The letter sent in conformity with the resolution was as follows:

THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA,

MRS. CHARLEMAGNE TOWER:

1300 LOCUST STREET, PHILADELPHIA, March 11, 1890.

DEAR MADAM,-I have the honor to inform you that your munificent gift to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania of the unique collection of colonial laws and other books relating to American history from the library of the late Mr. Tower was made the subject of a special meeting of the Council of the Society on the 8th instant, when your letter to Mr. Brinton Coxe, the President of the Society, was read, and his acceptance of your present was communicated. It was unanimously resolved that the Secretary bè instructed to convey to you the most grateful acknowledgments of the Council for your extraordinary gift, and to assure you of the inestimable value of it to the members of the Society and all students of history in our city, and to express their eminent satisfaction at having been selected as the guardians of so great a treasure and so appropriate a memorial to the late possessor of it.

At a stated meeting of the Historical Society itself, held last evening, the 10th instant, announcement was made of your invaluable gift, and the action of the Council was approved in terms denoting the highest appreciation of your priceless present.

I have the honor to be

Respectfully yours,

GREGORY B. KEEN,

Corresponding Secretary and Secretary of the Council of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

The letters, together with the following description of the collection, were read to the Society at a stated meeting, held March 10, 1890.

This collection, one of the most important ever formed in this city, and in its special line unequalled in the world, consists entirely of books whose great rarity renders them precious as well for their historical importance as for their extreme costliness.

The special object which Mr. Tower had in view was the collecting of material for the comparative study of our colonial laws, but the works on the early history of this country, which were at first acquired only as illustrative and supplemental to the series of laws, are so numerous and valuable as to form a distinct collection of great importance.

The collection of colonial laws, with a number of volumes which the Society can add to it, embraces the first extant edition issued by each of the twelve colonies which formed the United States, except Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Maryland, the first edition of the laws of Vermont, as well as those of the British and Danish West Indies. In nearly every case the first edition is supplemented not only by all or almost all of the subsequent revisions issued prior to 1800, but, with the exception of North Carolina and Georgia, by those rarest of rare books, the original session laws. The number of titles of the various issues of the laws of each of the colonies is about: Barbados, 2; Bermuda, 1; Caribbee Islands, 3; Connecticut, 96; Danish Colonies, 1; Delaware, 7; Georgia, 3; Jamaica, 5; Maryland, 6; Massachusetts, 407; Montserrat, 1; Nevis, 1; New England, 2; New Hampshire, 6; New Jersey, 25; New York, 56; New York City, 4; North Carolina, 2; Nova Scotia, 2; Pennsylvania, 151; Quebec, 7; Rhode Island, 74; St. Christopher, 2; South Carolina, 5; Vermont, 2; and Virginia, 39.

The set of Pennsylvania laws is not only unequalled, but a junction of all the other known collections would not produce one as complete. The series of Massachusetts laws had as a nucleus the collection of Dr. George H. Moore, of New York, which has been styled by the editor of the reprint of the revision of 1672 the finest private collection in existence, and to it Mr. Tower was fortunately able to make important additions, so that it is now the finest and most complete set in any one place. Beginning with the earliest revision known to be extant,-that printed at

Cambridge in 1660,-the collection of revisions is complete down to 1788. The session laws begin in 1673 and run, with gaps of varying length, to 1714, from which period to the Revolution they are absolutely complete. The temporary laws lack only about ten pages of the sessional issues of being equally perfect, and the series of tax laws from 1699 to 1800 is probably the best in existence. The series of New Hampshire laws begins with the only known copy of the first issued,—a thin volume printed in Boston in 1699,-which is followed by the only two colonial revisions issued and several session laws. Of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland but one revision is lacking of each colony, while of session laws the Connecticut and New York series are very good, New Jersey is fairly represented, and the Rhode Island series, nearly complete from 1757 to 1800, is very fine. The edition of the laws of New York, printed in 1789, is an especially noteworthy book, from its historical associations and as a very remarkable specimen of eighteenthcentury American binding. It is the copy specially bound for presentation to General Washington, whose autograph and bookplate appear in each volume. The copy of the first edition is an exceptionally fine one. It is a volume of great rarity, but six others being known, and the esteem in which it is held may be judged of from the fact that the three copies which have changed hands within the last ten years have sold for $1450, $1600, and $1750 respectively. The laws and ordinances of the city of New York are also very rare books, the original editions having been very limited. This collection contains four of the six editions known to be extant. All the Delaware revisions are in the collection, as well as a number of session laws. The Virginia series is very fine, and the first edition, printed in London in 1662, with its contemporaneous manuscript connection to 1684, which differs from the accepted text, is one of many highly-important volumes contained in this collection.

The whole collection has been sumptuously bound on a uniform plan by the Bradstreet Company, of New York. The two great series of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts laws and the first edition of each of the colonies have been bound in full-crushed Levant morocco; the exterior style is Jansenist, while the inside panel has been tooled to a delicate Grolier pattern, in the centre of which is a graceful symbolical design surrounded by an appropriate legend. The laws of each colony have been bound in one special color, selected as far as possible for its appropriateness; the inside panel has been varied from red to blue as best contrasted with the exterior, and a rich orange-colored watered silk with a handsomely-tooled border has been used throughout for the fly-leaves. The other volumes have been bound in halfcrushed Levant with cloth sides, on which has been impressed the central design of the panel of the full-bound volumes.

Among the miscellaneous Americana there are the earliest general histories of the original colonies, such as Neal's "New England;" Belknap's "New Hampshire;" Hutchinson's "Massachusetts;" Peters's "Connecticut;" Smith's "New Jersey;" Proud's "Pennsylvania;" Beverley's Stith's and Burk's "Virginia;" Williamson's "North Carolina;" Archdale's and Glenn's "South Carolina;" Hewatt's "South Carolina and Georgia.' There are also many volumes on America printed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Of these may be mentioned Zeigler's "Syria, Schondia," etc., Strasburg, 1532; Robertus Moncechus's "Bellum Christianorum," Basle, 1533; Mauri's "Sphera Volgare," Venice, 1537; Tevet's "Historia dell' India America," Venice, 1561; Benzoni's "Historia de Mondo Nuovo," Venice, 1572; Monardes's "Historia de las Indias," Seville, 1574; the same in English, London, 1580; Acosta's "Historia de las Indias," Seville, 1590; the same in English, London, 1604; Linschoten's "Voyages," London, 1598; Peter Martyr's "West Indies," London, 1612; Whitbourne's "Newfoundland," 1622;

Vaughan's "Golden Fleece," London, 1626; Smith's "Virginia," 1627; Stigliani's "Il Mondo Nuovo," Rome, 1628; White's "The Planter's Plea," London, 1630; Castell's "Petition concerning the Propagation of the Gospel among the Indians," London, 1641; Williams's "Virginia," London, 1650, and several other early tracts relating to Virginia. In regard to the Indians, we have Hubbard's "Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians," Boston, 1677, with the rare original map; Colden's "History of the Five Nations," London, 1750; "A Treaty held at Lancaster," Philadelphia: B. Franklin, 1744; "Several Conferences between the Quakers and the Six Nations," Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1756; "The Mohawk Prayer-Book," London, 1787; Doddridge's "Indian Wars," Wellsburg, Va., 1824, and a very fine series of the Eliot Indian tracts.

Beginning with the first of these quaintly-worded titles, we have: "New England's First Fruits, in respect of the Conversion of some, Conviction of Divers, and Preparation of Sundry of the Indians," 1643; "The Day Breaking, if not the Sunrising of the Gospel with the Indians," 1647; "The Clear Sunshine of the Gospel breaking forth upon the Indians," 1648; "The Glorious Progress of the Gospel among the Indians," 1649; "The Light appearing more and more towards the Perfect Day," 1651; Strength out of Weakness," 1652, in all its three variations; "Tears of Repentence," 1653; and "A Late and Further Manifestation of the Progress of the Gospel among the Indians," 1653.

Vice-President Charles J. Stillé, LL.D., moved that the action of the Council in reference to the munificent gift of Mrs. Tower be ratified and confirmed by the Society, and in doing so spoke of the great value of the books which Mrs. Tower had kindly presented.

They were not valuable simply because they were rare, and