Parkman says : " The primative Indian believed in the immortality of the soul, and that skilful hunters, brave warriors, and men of influence went, after deafli, to the happy hunting-grounds, while the slothful, the cowardly, the weak were doomed to eat serpents and ashes in dreary and misty regions, but there was no belief that the good were to be rewarded for moral good, or the evil punished for a moral evil." So you will see that the writing of a history of the Mohawks would be an arduous task, a history filled with mystery and supersitition together with kindly deeds and warlike acts, a history of a people ertdowed with minds that were able to conceive a union of tribes, states or nations, call them what you may, and to perpetuate that union for centuries, the success of which suggested to our forefathers the union of states, the government under which we now live. I- Of C. *' HOLLANDER."

ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON, The Author of the Louisiana Purchase.

Hon. D. S. Alexander.

After signing the treaty ceding Louisiana to the United States, Robert R. Livingston declared it the noblest work of his life. If one may not assent to this enthusiastic statement of the speaker, who had been a member of the committee to draft the immortal Declaration of Independence, it is easy to admit tJhat his work stands next in historical importance to the treaty of 1783, which recognized American independence. It added half an empire to our domain, and, a century later, gave Edward Everett Hale opportunity to speak of Livingston as " the wisest American of his time," since " Franklin had died in 1780." When Livingston signed the Louisiana treaty he was fifty-six years of age, tall and handsome, with an abundance of hair already turning gray, which fell in ringlets over a square, high forehead, lending a certain dignity that made him appear as great off the bench as he did when gowned and throned as Chancellor.