which was 860 feet long and twelve feet high; roads and bridges had to be built; an incompetent manager who had been sent over to supplant him had made useless and very expensive changes while Hasenclever was on a visit to England; and the ore of some of his mines on which he had expended much labor contained too much sulphur to be profitably melted. Besides, he had justly quarreled with and separated from Rupert, his potash manufacturer; and his potash did not turn out to be of prime quality, and sold at a loss in London. Thirty pounds of hemp seed which he had imported from Europe and sowed, yielded

no returns.

While he was struggling with ardor and hope against a thousand obstacles to immediate success, he learned in October, 1766, that Seton, one of his partners, was a bankrupt and had wasted the capital of the company, and that his commercial house had been fraudulently sacrificed. He succeeded, however, in making an arrangement with his co-adventurers for the continued prosecution of mining in America, and came again in 1768 to New York as their agent. But the new manager of the works whom they had sent out was utterly ignorant of the business. His difficulties here and in London increased, his bills were protested, and he proceeded in 1769 to London for the last time. He represents in his statement of his case that the American Company, sometimes called also the London Company, was engaged in an unworthy clandestine conspiracy against him, and that it was by their machinations in 1770 that he was declared a bankrupt. Indeed, Lord Hillsborough, secretary for the colonies, at their solicitation, wrote to Gen. Clinton to sustain the new manager of the company against the interference of Hasenclever.

In part that he might be able to justify his proceedings before the Court of Chancery, Gov. Franklin of New Jersey, by official request appointed a committee consisting of Lord Stirling, Col. John Schuyler, and others to visit all

his works. They testified to the perfection of his iron works, to the superior quality of his iron, and to the many improvements in the methods of manufacture which he had introduced, some of which were afterwards adopted in England. And one particular which they mention, to quote their own words, is the following, which is strange if true: "He is the first person that we know who has so greatly improved the use of the great natural ponds of this country, as by damming them to secure reservoirs of water for the use of iron works in the dry season, without which the best streams are liable to fail in the great droughts we are subject to."

At this time James Rivington, the New York bookseller and publisher, writes to Sir William Johnson (Sept. 16, 1769): "Poor Peter Hasenclever, who in the last five years has buried the better part of a hundred thousand pounds in this country, is now among the unfortunates, being declared a bankrupt. His fate is regretted, for he was honest and well beloved." Thomas, in his History of Printing in America, relates that pamphlets opposed to the stamp act were frequently published in 1765 in New Jersey with the imprint " Printed at Peter Hasenclever's iron works;" "a wealthy German well known as the owner of extensive iron works in New Jersey." It was a ruse of the authors to conceal the knowledge of the place where the printing had been done.

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As late as 1773 he memorialized the lord chancellor for relief by the court, stating that he was so poor that his wife and daughter were then being supported by the charity of his relatives in Germany.

The landed property of which he was possessed in his own name, or in behalf of the American company, was the 50,000 acres connected with his mines in New Jersey and in Orange county, New York, 18,000 acres in Herkimer county, called the Hasenclever patent, 6,755 acres bought additionally for his agricultural operations close by Ger

man Flats, 40,000 acres in Nova Scotia, and 11,500 acres on Lake Champlain north of Crown Point. The land on Lake Champlain he bought jointly with Gen. Gage, Gen. Philip Schuyler and others. His title to this land in Essex county was probably never perfected.' As late as 1815, 1,000 acres of this land in Orange county was sold for nonpayment of taxes to the amount of $415, which had been due since 1767.

A portion of the land in the Hasenclever patent in Herkimer, which was dated February 27, 1769, was sold by the state for the non-payment of taxes as late as 1822. The land was in the towns called Herkimer and Newport, afterwards Schuyler, and was bounded northeast by Canada creek, south by Cosby manor and Colden's manor, and bordered on the Mohawk river. This land which it was kindly allowed to him to purchase, originally was part of a large purchase of 140,000 acres made from the Indians, by Gov. Moore and Sir William Johnson. He was a frequent visitor at Johnson Hall, and there are numerous letters from him among the Johnson papers in the N. Y. State Library. Gen. Gage, in a letter, speaks of him very favorably to Johnson. In his letters to Johnson, Hasenclever expressed in the strongest language his convictions that it was not for the interest of Americans to engage in manufactures, but only in raising raw material.

During the year 1770 he was endeavoring with much hope and expectation to find purchasers in England for his land that he might get free from his troubles. What became of his lawsuit after 1773, I have no information, other than that proceedings were had in the case in the Court of Chancery as late as twelve years after, in 1785. He returned to Germany, and introduced at Landshut, in Silesia, the linen manufacture, which he conducted with great judgment, till the year. 1792, when he died much lamented. In at least one place in this country where his

1 Watson's History of Essex County, N. Y., Albany, 1869.

name was in use one hundred years since, it has been corrupted into Baron Hass.

Steel of the finest quality imported into this country from Germany, till a comparatively recent period, was known as the Hasenclever steel. We hope to ascertain whether it was a steel manufactured by our Hasenclever's methods.

It may stimulate a worthy spirit of enterprise that I should copy in conclusion an extract from Hasenclever's Case on a silver mine in this state: "I lost also on a share in a silver mine of which Col. Fred. Philips (on whose land it lies, twenty-eight miles above New York) had given me one-sixth, and I went there with some miners to examine it; this mine proves now to be very valuable, and may become in time an immense concern." 1

Much of the information in this article has been derived from a pamphlet of which I have never heard of any copy than the one copy, which is in the State Library. It contains 97 pages, and is entitled The Case of Peter Hasenclever, and was written by himself. It contains many additional statistics as to the cost of production of the articles mentioned in this paper, and the obstacles to success, especially as regards iron: with numerous details regarding his financial difficulties.

It has seemed most proper to make a record of an attempt to develop the iron mining industry in this country at such an early date, and at such prodigal expenditure, which whatever may have been the loss to its originators, has of course enured to the advantage of others. The town and county histories of the places where he lavished his capital, contain no account of the visionary but most sincere Peter Hasenclever.

1 An early member of the Institute, Winslow C. Watson, Esq., has kindly suggested to me that this mine is the one which was rediscovered about forty years since at Sing Sing, and as he is disposed to believe near the site of the State Prison. The implements which had been used in ante-revolutionary times were found in the abandoned mine.

The Geological Evidence of the Origin of Species by Evolution. By Prof. CHARLES CALLAWAY.

[Read before the Albany Institute, December 16, 1873.]

To prevent misunderstanding, let me at starting distinctly define what I propose to do. I express no opinion on Darwin's hypothesis of the origin of species by natural selection. Evolution does not necessarily involve natural selection. All I contend for is evolution in contradistinction from separate creation. Then, too, I do not pretend to present a complete case. I retain myself as counsel to examine only one class of witnesses, the races of extinct beings who being dead yet speak.

Much will depend on our answer to the preliminary question, "What is a species?" Naturalists have generally agreed that a species is that assemblage of animals or plants the individuals of which are fertile. Distinct species either produce no offspring, or their progeny is a bybrid and is barren. It is not necessary that I should discuss this definition, simply because it is quite inapplicable in the present case. We cannot resuscitate fossil forms and command them to be fruitful and multiply. We must, then, seek some other test, and I confess myself in despair of finding one. Let us assume one; let us define a species as that assemblage of living forms which agree in the possession of certain characters which are not collectively possessed by any other assemblage. I presume no one will object to the substance of that definition. Now the unscientific, if there are any here, will ask where is your difficulty? Is not a horse distinguished from an ass by certain characters, and is there any likelihood of con