edition. But I now begin to see that it is impracticable for me. Nearly forty years of additional experience in the affairs of mankind would lead me into dilatations ending I know not where. That experience indeed has not altered a single principle. But it has furnished matter of abundant development. Every moment too, which I have to spare from my daily exercise and affairs is engrossed by a correspondence, the results of the extensive relations which my course of life has necessarily occasioned. And now the act of writing itself is becoming slow, laborious and irksome. I consider, therefore, the idea of preparing a new copy of that work as no more to be entertained. The work itself indeed is nothing more than the measure of a shadow, never stationary, but lengthening as the sun advances, and to be taken anew from hour to hour. It must remain, therefore, for some other hand to sketch its appearance at another epoch, to furnish another element for calculating the course and motion of this member of our federal system."

The revised copy of the Notes here mentioned passed into the hands of his literary executor, from whom it passed to J. W. Randolph & Co., who printed an edition from it in 1853. To this they added the following note:

Thomas Jefferson left at his death a printed copy of his Notes on Virginia, containing many manuscript notes, several plates and a map, intended apparently for a new edition of the work. As an edition had then been recently published it was deemed best to delay any further publication until the book should become scarce. It is now nearly out of print, and a general desire is expressed for another edition. With a view of gratifying this wish, Mr. Jefferson's executor, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, has transferred to the publisher the materials prepared by the author for the new edition.

In making this preparation the author used a copy of the first edition, and thus inadvertently repeated an error in the narrative preceding Logan's speech which had been corrected in a later edition. An historical statement making the correction, deduced by the author from certain documents, and the documents themselves, will be found in Appendix No. IV. They are taken from a re-print of the work in 1825.

The manuscript notes of the present edition are numerous and interesting. Many are in foreign languages, and disclose the extensive erudition of the author. Professor Schele De Vere, the accomplished and learned incumbent of the Chair of Modern Languages of the University of Virginia, has been kind enough to translate the French, Spanish and Italian notes. These translations will be found in Appendix No. IV.

The circumstances under which the Notes on Virginia were written, are stated by the author in this preface. It may be well to add, that the foreigner of dis tinction to whom they were addressed was Mons, Barbe De Marbois, the Secretary of the French Legation in the United States, and that they were written

while the author was confined to his room by an injury received from the falling of his horse.

The beauty of style, the accuracy of information, and the scientific research displayed in the Notes have made them a permanent part of our national literature. The publisher therefore conceives that in publishing a new edition of this admirable work, he is renewing a valuable contribution to that literature, and rendering a just tribute to the illustrious author.

September 13, 1853."

The original edition of the Notes was printed with the title here reproduced in facsimile. It was a small octavo, of 391 pages, plus the title and folding leaf. The last twenty-five pages were an Appendix" of notes contributed by Charles Thomson. After Jefferson had distributed some copies, he printed a Draught of a Fundamental Constitution for the Commonwealth of Virginia' (pp. 14), and "Notes on the Establishment of a Money Mint and a Coinage for the United States" (pp. 14) in uniform style, and added them as appendices to the copies he still had. Still later he printed, on its passage by the Virginia legislature, "An Act for Establishing Religious Freedom" (pp. 4), which he made a third appendix to the copies still remaining in his hands. In addition to these appendices, he cancelled in 1786 pages 52-4 of the original edition, in which he had propounded the suggestion, to explain the occurrence of sea shells in high mountains on other grounds than that of an universal deluge (in which he had no faith), that "besides the usual process for generating shells by the elaboration of earth and water in animal vessels, may not nature have provided an equivalent operation, by passing the same materials through the pores of calcareous earths and stones?" In lieu of these, he had printed new pages, omitting this theory, and substituted these leaves in the copies still remaining in his hands; but they must have been few, for copies with these new sheets are very uncommon.

The French translation of Morellet was somewhat revised, and had an "Avertissement" of the translator. It omitted Thomson's notes, and the three appendices already mentioned. It had, however, a map drawn by Jefferson, which the latter considered far more valuable than the Notes themselves. The title of this edition was:

Observations / sur / La Virginie, / Par M. J***. / Traduites de L'Anglois. / A Paris, / Chez Barrois, l'aîné, Librarie, rue du / Hurepoix, près le pont SaintMichel. / 1786. / 8vo pp. (4), viij, 390, (2), (4), map and folding leaf.

The first published edition in English was, as already recorded, by Stockdale, in London. This had an introductory note and included the three appendices that Jefferson had printed since the appearance of the original edition, as also the new matter which had replaced the cancelled leaves. The typographical changes were very numerous, chiefly in the spelling of geographical names, of the substitution of spelled for numeral figures, and in the correction of some few minor errors. It also contained the map that had appeared in the French edition. It was the first edition to give the name of the author, the title being:

VOL. III.-6

Notes on the State of Virginia. / written by / Thomas Jefferson. /illustrated with / A Map, including the States of Virginia, Mary- / land, Delaware and Pennsylvania. / London : / Printed for John Stockdale, opposite / Burlington-House, Piccadilly. / M.DCC.LXXXVII. / 8vo. pp. (4), 382, map and folding leaf.

This edition was at once reprinted verbatim, in America (a pirated edition apparently), but without the map. The title was.

Notes on the / State / of / Virginia. / Written by / Thomas Jefferson. / Philadelphia: / Printed and sold by Prichard and Hall, in Market / Street, between Front and Second Streets. / M.DCC.LXXXVIII. / 8vo. pp. (4), 344, folding leaf.

A German translation was issued in 1789 with the title of :

Beschriebung von Virginien

. Leipzig, 1789.

A second American reprint of the Stockdale edition was made with Jefferson's consent in 1794. The title was:

Notes on the State of Virginia: Second American edition. Philadelphia: Matthew Carey. 1794, 8vo. pp. 4, 336, map and folding leaf.

In 1797-8 Jefferson prepared an additional appendix, which he printed separately, two years later, with the title of :

An Appendix / to the / Notes on Virginia / Relative to the Murder of Logans Family. / By Thomas Jefferson. / Philadelphia: Printed by Samuel H. Smith./M.DCCC. / 8vo. pp. 51.

This appendix was included in the next edition of the Notes, which bore the title:

Jefferson's / Notes, / on the State of Virginia ; / with the / Appendixes— Complete. / Baltimore: / Printed by W. Pechin, corner of Water & Gay streets. / 1800. 8vo. pp. 194, 53.

All editions subsequent to this, except the last, are reprints of the text of 1787, together with this appendix relating to Logan. More or less full bibliographical titles are given in the Historical Magazine, 1, 52; Sabin's Dictionary of Books relating to America; and H. B. Tompkins' Bibliotheca Jeffersoniana. Only a check list of imprints therefore is here given.

With "

Dissertation." Baltimore: W. Pechin. 1800.

Third American Edition. New York: M. L. & W. A. Davids. 1801.
Fourth American Edition. New York: T. B. Janson & Co., 1801.

Newark Pennington & Gould.

1801.

Philadelphia: R. T. Rawle. 1801.

Eighth American Edition. Boston: D. Carlisle.

1801.

Ninth American Edition. Boston: H. E. Sprague. 1801.

Trenton Wilson & Blackwell. 1803.

Trenton Wilson & Blackwell, for M. Carey. 1803.

It is proper to state that the text of the Notes, as printed in Washington's edition of Jefferson's Writings, is that of 1787, but the editor chose to modify one paragraph to suit his personal views.

Although Jefferson never revised the Notes further than to amend the text for the edition printed in 1787, and the "Logan appendix," he left a copy of the 1787 with MS revisions. From this an edition was printed in 1853 which besides embodying Jefferson's corrections, included a preface by the publisher, an "Extract from a Letter of Judge Gibson," and translations of the notes in foreign tongues. It also contains four plates and a woodcut not in any other edition. It is therefore the best edition, and one of the most difficult to procure. Its title is :

Notes/on the/State of Virginia, / by / Thomas Jefferson: /illustrated with / a Map, including the States of Virginia, Maryland / Delaware and Pennsylvania./ A New Edition, / Prepared by the Author, / Containing Notes and Plates never before published. / J. W. Randolph, / 121 Main Street, Richmond, Va. / 1853. / 8vo. pp. (10), 275, map, folding topographical analysis, and four plates.

The Notes stirred up considerable controversy. Jefferson's theory of shell formation was somewhat ridiculed in the French press of the day, and later the same theory was brought forward by certain of his political opponents in America in an endeavor to make him absurd. His statements concerning Logan were sharply criticised for personal and political reasons. His argument against the universal deluge and his plea for religious toleration were used extensively as a political argument against him. These latter produced several pamphlets pro and con, concerning his religious opinions, of which the following by Clement Clarke Moore, is the only one entirely based on the Notes:

Observations/upon certain passages in / Mr. Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, / which appear to have a tendency to / subvert Religion, / and Establish/A False Philosophy. /New-York. / 1804. / 8vo. pp. 32.

In the New York State Library at Albany are the proof sheets of the first edition of the Notes with Jefferson's corrections. These are fully described in the Historical Magazine, (x111, 96), by E. B. O'Callaghan. Only a single one is of a character to deserve notice in this reprint. In 1874 Jefferson's copy of the edition of 1787 with his autograph corrections was sold at auction in New York for $160, passing to the library of E. G. Asay of Chicago.

For more concerning the Notes see the Historical Magazine, XIII, 96; Spark's

Writings of Franklin, X, 317; Jefferson's Autobiography, 1, 85: and the Monthly Review, LXXVIII, 377, 450.

The present text conforms to that of the original edition printed in 1784, the original page numbers being given in brackets. This text has been compared, however, with the editions of 1787 and 1853, and all variations, other than typographical or verbal are indicated in footnotes. The first appendix, consisting of Charles Thomson's notes, has been broken up, and each note placed with the part of the text to which it relates, as more convenient for reference. The "Notes on a Money Unit," the Fundamental Constitution," and the "Bill for Religious Freedom," are omitted, as not strictly forming part of the Notes, and more appropriately printed elsewhere. The appendix relating to Logan is compressed, by the exclusion of the confirmatory documents, and is placed as a footnote to the original account. The map is a reproduction of Jefferson's original map, first published in the edition of 1786. The plate illustrating the "Logan matter is reproduced from the "Appendix " of 1800. The "Eye draught of Madison's cave" is reproduced from the first edition. The other four plates are taken from the edition of 1853. The present text therefore embodies practically all that is germane and valuable in every previous edition.