from that day has been a successful candidate to public offices; and, finally, has raised himself a respectable name and estate.

I notice in the old MSS., that they originally called a portmantean (as we now call it) a portmantle-certainly an appropriate name, as it was originally used as an intended cover for the necessary cloak or mantle, in travelling on horseback. The present word knapsack, I also found was originally spelled snapsack-an expressive name. when we consider it, as it was, a sack which fastened with a snapspring, or lock. As it was in itself a convenient pillow for the traveller when obliged to sleep abroad in the woods, it must have received the nickname of nap among the soldiers. The words portmantle and snapsack may be found used in Madame Knight's Journal, of 1704.—I think I have discovered the origin of the name of "Blue stockings," applied to literary ladies. I find that, a century ago, it was a mark of lady-like distinction to wear coloured stockings, with great clocks-blue and green colours were preferred. The ladies who then formed literary clubs, being, of course, the best educated, and coming from the upper class in society, were those, chiefly, who could afford the blue stockings.-A pair of those stockings, of green silk, and broad red clocks, I have lately seen in possession of Samuel Coates, Esq. They were the wedding ones of his grandmother, in Philadelphia, and are double the weight of the present silk hose.

Sweating of Gold Coins.-The Saturday Bulletin, of the 29th of January, 1831, republishes a long article from the Lancaster Gazette, called "Reminiscences of Philadelphia:" the same is managed with considerable humour, and is intended to show, that the house of N. and D., and the silversmith, Mr. D., were considerably engaged in money-making, as a matter of commerce, by sweating gold coin, and making it lighter thereby, for the West India trade, &c. This was during the time of the operation of Jay's treaty, which opened an extensive commerce with the British West India islands. It having been noticed that the half johannes was taken there by tale, the process of sweating was resorted to, by which fifteen to twenty per cent. of its value was retained. This answered sundry merchants for a time; but it becoming dangerous and disreputable as it became known, another expedient was resorted to-to make dies to construct a coin of alloyed gold. A Mr. Timothy Bingham, a die-sinker, and a Mr. Armitage, were employed in this service by sundry merchants, to whom they made their plans known. At the same time, Mr. D., the silversmith, also conceived the plan of making them, for his own market, so as to make his pieces, of six pennyweight, pass in the West Indies for eight dollars. He quit his employmeut as a silversmith, it is said, and moved into fashionable display, in the hopes of his splendid fortune; but a disaster at sea sunk his gold, and buried all his golden dreams at once.-[I knew the man, but I never heard of these circumstances.]

Lady Montague's story seems too modern to account for it, and looks like a forced explanation.

This gold-sweating was done at New York, before the Revolution, without shame or reproach, for all gold going to the West Indies. An old gentleman told me, that he saw it often done there, when he was a lad, seventy years ago. It sweat off like water.

Potatoes.-This excellent vegetable was very slow of reception among us. It was first introduced from Ireland, in 1719, by a colony of Presbyterian Irish, settled at Londonderry, in New Hampshire. They were so slow in its use in New England, that as late as 1740, it was still a practice with masters to stipulate with some apprentices that they should not be obliged to use them! The prejudice was pretty general against them, that they would shorten men's lives, and make them unhealthy; and it was only when some people of the better sort chose to eat them as a palatable dish, that the mass of the people were disposed to give them countenance. At about the same time, fine salmon were so plentiful in Connecticut river, that apprentices in New England, stipulated not to eat them more than twice a week!

Big Oak Trec.-Such a tree, little noticed, is now standing on the farm of the Almshouse, near Philadelphia, probably the largest in Philadelphia county. It measures fourteen feet seven inches in circumference at the base, two feet above ground; and twelve feet eight inches at six feet from the ground. Its diameter, at one foot above the ground, is five feet four inches. The height of the tree is about fifty feet, and it has four big limbs, extending thirty-four, forty, forty-three, and forty-six feet, respectively. It appears to have increased by its annual rings, one eighth of an inch, and thus to indicate the tree to be two hundred and forty years of age. It is now, in 1837, in a state of decay, having the trunk or body of the tree hollow; but it may last as a venerable relic of days bygone, for several years to

come.

Penn's Arms on Mile-stones.-There are now but few persons who are aware of these old mile-stones, made of sandstone. They stand on the Gulf road, and on another parallel road, probably the Haverford, marked 12 miles from the city-[12] in front, and on the back [000]. The three balls have always been called "the appledumplings." The stones on one of these roads were placed there by the Mutual Assurance Fire Company, as a price for their charter from the Penn family. It was a tradition of simple folk, that Penn was feasted with dumplings by King Tamany, at the Treaty-tree, and so gave rise to the balls as Penn's arms!

Ancient Coin found.-Ten pieces of silver coin, about two hundred years old, were recently ploughed up on B. C. Timmins' farm, at Chester, Burlington county, N.J. They are about the size of a dollar. No. 1, dated 1647, coined under Fred. Henry, prince of Orange: motto, " Confidens in Domino, non movetur"-(those who trust in God, shall not be moved.) No. 2, dated 1677, coined under William III., prince of Orange, with the same motto.

Milch Cows and Cowherd.-There used to be a regular gather

street near Se

ing of cows, by a cowherd, in Philadelphia, in Dock cond, which was continued down to the year 1795. Every morning, early, he stood at that place and blew his horn. Then all the housekeepers let out the cows in the neighbourhood-some two or three dozen, which would go directly to the point of assemblage, all standing still till the whole were gathered; then they went off with the cowherd to their field or commons for the day. In the evening he went for them and returned to the same spot; then the cowherd blew his horn, to warn the housekeepers of their return, when they opened their gates. At a signal understood, he blew his last blast, and they all dispersed to their several homes.

I know several persons, now of about sixty years of age, (in 1836,) sons of men in the best circumstances of life, who used to drive their cows out of town, daily, to pasture. [I kuow several of our city great ones, who would not thank me for my recollection of their names and actions.] They drove cows from as far as High street by Second and Third streets, out to the neighbourhood of Bush-hill and Girard college. I lately met one of the persons in this neighbourhood, and he inquired of me if I could recollect when he had charge of three such cows daily. He is now independent, and a bank di

rector.

Tar and Feathers at Philadelphia.-In October, 1769, a man who had informed against some run wines, from an Egg Harbour shallop, was seized by some tars, and tarred and feathered from head to foot, then paraded through the street, and before every customhouse officer's door, and at the collector's. They then set him in the pillory, and afterwards ducked him in the mud of the dock, and then let him go in peace, to sin no more. [Similar measures were performed upon informers at New York and Boston in those days.] A Grave Stone to James Porteus, dated July, 1736, now actually heads his grave in a city yard, say in Fox's lot in North Third street. A grave-stone to M. Leader, lettered 1715, aged sixty-four years, with an hour-glass device, was dug up in 1832, in digging for a cellar, in the yard of No. 70, west side of Second street, below Chestnut street. The place was made ground, and may have been a family burial place.

Two grave-stones, of John and Rhoda Church, were dug from a cellar in Arch street, between Seventh and Eighth streets, in 1842. It had been Dr. Church's family ground.

36

CURIOSITIES AND DISCOVERIES.

"I say the tale, as it was said to me."

THE following facts, for want of a better designation, are arranged under the present head, although their value, as discoveries or curiosities, may have but little claim to future renown, to wit:

Kalm, the Swedish traveller, when here, in the year 1748, speaks of numerous instances of finding fragments of trees deeply embedded in the earth at Philadelphia and elsewhere. He had himself got a piece of petrified hickory, on the north-west side of the town, in the clay pits, then filled with water from a brook, where were many muscle shells-Mytili anatini. Boys gathered them and brought them to town for sale, where they were considered a dainty. Pieces of trees, roots, and leaves of oak, were often dug up from the well pits, dug in Philadelphia at the depth of eighteen feet. They also found in some places a slime like that which the sea throws on the shore. This slime was often full of trees, branches, reed, charcoal, &c. He relates similar facts from several of the Swedes at Swedesboro' then called Rackoon, to wit: One King, a man of fifty years of age, had got a well dug on a hill near a rivulet, and at the depth of forty feet, found a quantity of shells of oysters and muscles, besides much reed and pieces of broken branches. Peter Rambo, about sixty years of age, said that in several places at Rackoon, where they had dug deep in the ground, they had found quantities of muscle shells and other marine animals. Sometimes, at twenty feet depth, they discovered logs of wood petrified, and others were charred, probably by some mineral vapour. On making a dike several years before this relation, along the creek on which the Swedish church at Rackoon stood, they found, in cutting through a bank, that it was filled with oyster shells, although it was one hundred and twenty miles from the nearest sea shore. Often in digging wells they found clams. Similar relations were confirmed by special declarations of Mauns Keen, Iven Lock, William Cobb, Aoke Helm, &c. They related that on one occasion they found, at a depth of twenty to thirty feet, a whole bundle of flax in good condition. It excited great surprise how it could get there. Mr. Kalm imagines it may have been the wild Virginia flax-Linum virginianum. Or it may have been what the Swedes themselves called Indian hemp-Apocynum cannabinum-a plant which formerly grew plentifully in old corn ground, in woods and on hills. From this, the Indians made their ropes and fishing tackle, &c. I have been thus particular in this detail, because I have myself a specimen of a "hank of hemp," as the discoverers called it, dug up from a

well in the new prison, western yard, near Centre square, from the bottom of a pit or privy, at twelve feet deep.

Old Mauns Keen, a respectable Swede, told Mr. Kalm, in 1748, that on their making a first settlement at Helsinburg, on the Delaware below Salem, they found in digging to the depth of twenty feet, some wells enclosed with brick walls. The wells were at that time on the land, but in such places as are sometimes under water and sometimes dry. But since that time, the ground has been so washed away (of course old Helsinburg also!) that the wells are entirely covered by the river, and the water is seldom low enough to show the wells. As the Swedes afterwards made new wells at some distance from the former, they discovered in the ground some broken earthen vessels and some entire good bricks, and they often got them out of the ground by ploughing. These facts Mr. Kalm said, he often heard repeated by the aged Swedes. Their own belief was that the land, before their settlement there, had been possessed by some other race of Europeans, even possibly as the Wineland to which the old Norwegians went. The Indians, too, spoke of those wells, as being a tradition, that they had been made by another race of people some centuries before. We shall, however, see in these pages, that the Indians themselves had some rude construction of pottery, but never like the idea of real bricks. The whole suggestion and facts are curious, and may afford some speculation.

In digging a well for the house of the late David Rittenhouse, at the north-west corner of Seventh and Arch streets, they found the remains of a pine tree, at a depth of eighteen feet below ground. On the ground of Mr. Powell, within the same square, another like remains was also found; one of them was laying horizontal from the other, which seemed to be standing; they were obliged to cut off a limb to proceed with their work.

In digging a well for a pump, at Bingham's stable, back of the Mansion house, the well-digger found, at the depth of twenty-one feet, the appearance of a former surface, and several hickory nuts thereon.

In some part of Spruce street, some distance below the surface, the street commissioner, who told of it to Thomas Bradford, found there a pile of cord wood standing on its end.

The trunk of a buttonwood was found near Arch and Seventh streets, at a great depth beneath its present surface. It was embedded in black mud, and had many leaves and acorns about it.

Mr. John Moore, a brick-mason of the city, told me a fact which strongly illustrates the rapid rise of Philadelphia-to wit: that although he was but sixty years of age, he had built five hundred buildings. He gave me the following facts, viz.: About forty years ago, in digging a well thirty feet at the south-west corner of Eighth and Cherry streets for P. Waglam, they came to a pine tree, laying horizontal, which they cut through, of great dimensions. Mr. Moore has seven houses in Cherry street, on the south side, between