Evening Post Publishing Co.. 268 104

President, Hon. JOHN BIGELOW.

First Vice-President, Rt. Rev. HENRY C. POTTER, D.D.

Second Vice-President, JOHN S. KENNEDY, Esq.

Secretary, GEORGE L. RIVES, Esq., 32 Nassau Street.

Treasurer, EDWARD KING, Esq., Union Trust Company, 80 Broadway.

Director, JOHN S. BILLINGS, LL.D., 40 Lafayette Place.

TH

REGULATIONS

HE Astor Building, 40 Lafayette Place, and the Lenox Building, Fifth Avenue and 70th Street, are open daily, Sundays and legal holidays excepted, from 9 A. M. until 6 P. M.

The Reading rooms and the Exhibition rooms are free to all persons; but children under the age of fifteen years must be accompanied by an adult.

In the Reading room of each Library Building certain shelves are set apart for books of reference, which readers are allowed to take down and examine at their pleasure. For all other books an application must be made by filling out and signing one of the blanks provided for the purpose.

Published monthly by The New York Public Library, No. 40 Lafayette Place, New York City

Subscription One Dollar a year, single numbers Ten Cents

Entered as second-class matter at the New York, N. Y., Post Office, January 30, 1897

During the month of March there were received at the Library by purchase 1,049 books and 363 pamphlets, and by gift 810 volumes and 2,831 pamphlets. There were catalogued 7,960 books and 8,368 pamphlets, for which purpose 27,541 cards and 1,438 slips for the printer were written.

The following table shows the number of readers and the number of volumes consulted in both the Astor and Lenox branches of the Library during the month:

Among the important gifts received this month were 7 volumes and I pamphlet relating to litigation, from the General Electric Company; 44 volumes from the Grand Lodge of Kentucky; 4 rare pamphlets from the Howard Memorial Library, New Orleans; I volume from the Duc de Loubat; 101 volumes and 723 pamphlets from the Boston Medical Library; 38 volumes from the Toronto Public Library; 42 volumes from the Superintendent of Public Property, Wisconsin; 27 volumes and 207 pamphlets from the Rev. E. W. Gilman. Two English cities have forwarded copies of their public documents during the month, and there have been received 20 volumes and 11 pamphlets from the Governor of Trinidad; 3 volumes and 4 pamphlets from the Governor of Grenada, and 1 volume from the Governor of British Honduras.

Your letter of the 5th inst, and the Receipt for the second payment of the lots I purchased on the Eastern March in the Federal City came duly to hand.—

You are perfectly at liberty to examine my Presses and Trunks at Mount Vernon for any papers I may have respecting the transactions of the Directors of the Potomack Compa, or any matters & things which may concern the navigation of that River.

Mrs. Fanny Washington has the master key of all the others, from whom you can get it; but whether the papers you are in pursuit of are to be found in the press, or in any trunk I am unable to inform you.—The keys of the locked trunks are, if I remember rightly, in my writing table; the key of which remains in it.

For many very important reasons (unnecessary to enumerate to you) the navigation of that River ought to be pushed forward with all the celerity which the nature of the work will admit.—viewing the matter as I do, I shall not neglect any fair opportunity of facilitating a visit from Mr Weston to that quarter-but (under the rose, I must say it) however fair the assurances of his going thither may be, you may take it for granted, that from motives of jealousy there is a counter side to that measure;—and I wish you may not find something similar to it in an other quarter, if the operations on the Shenandoah are postponed much longer. Do not forget how the trade of Fredericksburg, Falmouth, Hanover too with York River, and indeed Richmond itself will be affected by the opening of this Navigation-I should not be at all surprized therefore, if future applications to the Assembly of Virga (if there be occasion to make any) respecting it shd meet with much coldness & difficulty.—

I should not, any more than you be disposed to confide in the opinion of Mr Claiborne's Engineer; nor (in confidence to you) to Mr. Claiborne him self; but as he speaks in exalted terms of this man (for you must know Claiborne is now in this City, and has mentioned the matter also to me) a little money might not be misapplied in obtaining the opinion of this Engineer; to see how far it would accord with Mr Weston's-if he can be got there; without, if he shd follow afterletting him know what his opinion is-'Tis possible, this person may unite (as Claiborne says he does) both science and practice.—If so, & he should possess other requisites, he might be useful-Tryal of, without a reliance upon him, cannot be injurious.

Mr. Jonathan Trumbull has once or twice asked me what reply the Comrs. of the Federal City have made to the letter of his brother John which I sent to them,