Union, beyond the limits of the states which it separates.

The collection contains many rare and curious atlases, and, among others, maps of America by Ortelius and the Brothers Blaeu; of New Netherlands by Visscher, and of New York by Ratzer and others, all of which are in an excellent state of preservation.

Although the library has been formed for the specific purpose of bringing together works upon particular subjects which have been selected for their contents, yet there are many not without interest in the eyes of the book-collector. Of these is a tall copy of Mather's Magnalia, of the original edition of 1702, with maps; a clear and perfect copy of the first edition of the laws of New Jersey, printed by Bradford, at New York, in 1709; a presentation copy of the original privately printed edition of Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, with his autograph; a presentation copy of Cadmus, to General Washington, with Washington's autograph on the title-page; a volume presented to Mr. Murphy by Colonel George Washington; and an excellent copy of the original Cow Chase, by Major André, printed by Rivington

in 1780.

There are in the collection some rare books, printed in New York, of comparatively recent date, among which is Captain Barnard Roman's Natural History

of Florida, published in 1775, written with such accuracy that later researches have added but little to the facts which it contains. The widow of Roman, who lived to an advanced age, died in New York a few years since. Also, a perfect copy of the New York Magazine, published in 1790-'97, in eight volumes, which is so rare as not to be found in the public libraries. It is a valuable work as a remembrancer of New York, and contains some curious prints of New York during the last century. It may be remarked, as illustrating the rarity of the works in this collection, that the library of the New York Historical Society, which numbers upward of twenty thousand volumes, contains but few of those enumerated in the present collection, for the reason that their rarity and the high price they command in market, places their purchase beyond the reach of the means at the disposal of the society.

WILLIAM CURTIS NOYES'S LIBRARY.

THIS collection numbers nearly seven thousand volumes, of which about five thousand are law books, and the residue miscellaneous. They have been collected during a practice of over twenty-five years. It consists of all the American Reports, with scarcely an exception, down to the present time, including those of Mr. Jefferson, containing Virginia General Court cases from 1730 to 1740, and from 1768 to 1772; of all the English Reports in the Courts of Law and Chancery, and in the Exchequer, down to the beginning of the year 1860, and all the Scotch decisions in the Justiciary, Session Courts, and House of Lords, and the Irish Reports in law and equity; the Scotch, including Morrison's Dictionary of Decisions, in 23 vols.; all the Faculty Decisions, in 21 vols.; Stairs & Erskine's Institutes; Brown's Synopsis of the Decisions of the Court of Session; and the Scottish Jurist; the latter quite a rare book in this country, bringing down the series to the year 1858. All the old English reporters, in folio, will

be found in it, from the Year Books, and Rolle's, Brookes's, Fitzherbert's, Sheppard's, Viner's and Petersdorf's Abridgments, and the Natura Brevium. In Elementary Law it contains all the principal treatises in England and America, among which is the "Law Library," in all the series, in upward of ninety volumes.

Among its rare volumes are all the Dome's Day Books, including the Exon Dome's Day, the Bolden Book, &c.; Kelham's and Sir Henry Ellis's Domesday Book; a complete copy of the Statutes at Large in England, down to the close of the last session of Parliament, in 78 vols.; the Ancient Laws and Institutes of England and Wales; the London Jurist, in 45 vols.; the Law Journal, complete from the commencement, in upward of 50 vols.; all the Ancient and Modern State Trials, and all the Reports and standard works in criminal, and in short, every thing in the English common law, both civil and criminal, and in equity, with the earlier treatises; the Mirror, Glanville, Bracton, Fortescue, and Fleta. It contains a considerable collection of codes, among which are the Chinese and Gentoo. The Frederician Code, and Strange's & Colebrooke's Hindoo Law ; Borradaile's Reports of Civil Causes, adjudicated in the Court of Sudur Udalut, in the Presidency of Bombay, 2 vols. folio; Perry's Oriental Cases, de

cided in the Supreme Court of Bombay. In these cases, which appear to have been considered with great care, are to be found decisions on Parsi marriages, Mahomedan succession, the celebrated opium cases, involving the law of wagers upon the market price of opium, the liabilities of the East India Company, the Bombay land tenures, the law of adoption, the Hindoo succession and devises to charity under the Hindoo religion; also, Ordinances of Menu, according to the Gloss of Cullúca, translated from the Sanscrit, by Sir William Jones, and McNaughten's Principles of Hindoo and Mahomedan law, embracing a chapter on Stridhan, or woman's sepa rate property, from which it appears that long before similar enactments in Christian countries, the rights of married women in regard to property were carefully protected by the Hindoo law.

There is also a copy of Beugnot's Assises de Jeru salem, 2 vols. folio, Paris, 1841. This work, which is very learnedly annotated, contains an account of the works on Jurisprudence written in the XIIIth century, and the laws of the kingdom of Jerusalem and Cyprus, during their existence in the time of the crusades.

Among the legal curiosities is a perfect copy of Statham's Abridgment, the first book of English law ever printed, which bears the imprint of R.