curious machines; useful discoveries; distinguished characters; printing presses; book stores; public libraries; scarce books; valuable manuscripts; customs and manners; the progress of luxury. 23. The state of population at different periods, and in reference to the place of birth, age, religious persuasion, occupation, and residence, whether in town, village, or country; the number of houses. 24. The militia: their numbers, organization, arms, ammunition, and mode of equipment; arsenals, magazines, powder-mills, founderies, fortifications. 25. Mendicity: the condition of the poor, and the expense and mode of supporting them; alms-house, hospitals, penitentiaries; the state of slavery. 26. Taxes, the amount, and kinds, paid for the use of the town, county, state, and United States; the public buildings, and other public improvements; the income and expenditures of incorporated villages and towns; the sources and objects. 27. Antiquities, whether aboriginal or colonial; curiosities, whether natural or artificial; drawings and descriptions, of whatever is interesting in those respects, especially of ancient fortifications and tumuli, ascertaining the materials composing them; their contents, and the purposes for which they were probably designed. 28. Meteors, comets, eclipses, earthquakes, tornadoes, tempests, inundations, volcanic eruptions, seasons of extreme heat and cold, or other remarkable events in the natural world; the present variation of the magnetic needle, and what it has been formerly, and at what places observed. 29. Miscellaneous observations not comprehended in the above. You will, Sir, at once perceive the important and comprehensive view which the society intend to take of the state of the country; it will embrace whatever relates to our climate, soil, cultivation, husbandry, manufactures, commerce, education, learning, population, occupations, police, manners, morals, religious principals, geography, history, geology, mineralogy, zoölogy, botany, and diseases; it proposes to examine, 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 promote 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 circulating 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, 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." "that 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 occupations 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, population, commerce, opulence, and power, it stands at the head of the Union; and it is believed that no country in the world furnishes more fertile subjects for the researches of the naturalist, the investigations of the philosopher, and the speculations of the politician. (Signed) By order, And in behalf of the Society. DE WITT CLINTON, PRESIDENT. N. B. Specimens of Minerals, and other subjects of Natural History, will be thankfully received and reposited in the Cabinet of the Society. *Please to transmit your answer to this Letter by a safe private conveyance, directed to the Hon. DE WITT CLINTON, Dr. DAVID HOSACK, or the Rev. Dr. JOHN M. MASON, New-York, or the Hon. JAMES KENT, Albany. DONATIONS FOR THE Library and Cabinet of the Literary and Philosophical Society, The Society. The Society. Transactions of the Society for the Promotion of Useful Arts in the State of New-York, Albany, 3 vols. 8vo. Hon. De Witt Clinton. S Camden's Britannia, London, 4 vols. folio. Repertory of Arts and Manufactures, published at London, first Repertory of Arts and Manufactures, second series, 13 nos. Smellie's Philosophy of Natural History, vol. 1. Philadelphia, Smellie's Philosophy of Natural History, vol 2. 4to. Edinburgh, 1799. Nicholson's Dictionary of Chemistry, London, 4to. 2 vols. 1795. Dr. David Hosack. Pearson's Chemical Nomenclature, second ed. 4to. London, 1799. Acta Helvetica, Physico-Mathematico-Botanico-Medica, Basil, vol. 1. 4to. 1751. Opera Medico Chemica Angeli Sala Vicentini, Frankfort, 4to. 1647. Musschenbroek's Elementa Physicæ, Leyden, 8vo. 1741. |