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the surface consists of Kansan drift, and it is also allowed that this surface was last deposited. It follows, therefore, that the earliest, or Kansan, drift was deposited after the Allegheny river had reached its present level. This is but one of hundreds of similar cases found for 200 miles along the Allegheny, and with streams under both glaciers-eastern and western-cut to present levels preglacially, the great antiquity of the ice age falls.

It may be asked, however, how the reversal of streams and cutting of cols are disposed of, as these are matters of considerable certainty.

When we consider that the ice advanced up stream in all cases over the northern Allegheny region, we can see that extreme high water would obtain and the water would pour over the cols into adjacent systems long before the actual presence of the ice at the spot. In fact, the actual presence at a given spot is unnecessary. If we next consider that the advancing ice would confront the loftiest part of our highlands, we can see that it would be aided in its efforts to produce high water by a large snow cap whose ablation would produce torrential conditions in all the drainage systems, and fill those systems with local trash, more or less rolled, which would saw down the cols over which the empounded waters escaped, long before the ice reached the region, and that when the glacier did make its appearance it would discharge into abnormally deep water. We have thousands of evidences from the north to the south of the State, in elevated beach lines, and similar remains, that the water exceeded 1600 feet above tide, and only on the highest mountain tops do we find unmodified till. In all other cases it is ordinary overwash or slack water modifications. The dead slack of the original water is shown throughout the region by the clean iceberg clay which sometimes reaches 100 feet in depth, and underlies all other deposits.

The matters touched upon here will be more fully discussed in the final report of the survey.

A NOTE ON THE HISTORY

OF THE JEFFERSON MANUSCRIPT DRAUGHT OF
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

IN THE LIBRARY OF

THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

BY I. MINIS HAYS, M.D.

(Read April 1, 1898.)

As the precise historic relation of the Jefferson manuscript draught of the Declaration of Independence, possessed by this Society, to the document as adopted by the Congress, has been involved in some indefiniteness, it seemed desirable to collect and carefully examine all the information available on the subject.

The draught was acquired by the American Philosophical Society seventy-three years ago and the following entry appears in its Donation Book:

"1825, August 19.

"The draught of the Declaration of Independence originally presented to Congress. This venerable document was sent to R. H. Lee (the mover of the resolution of Independence) by Thos. Jefferson (in whose handwriting it appears to be, with the alterations made previous to the adoption by Congress) on the 8th [sic] July 1776 & has remained in Mr. Lee's family until the present time when his Grandson, R. H. Lee, gave it to the A. P. Soc'y to be added to the Documents presented on 17 June. It was accompanied by a copy of Mr. Jefferson's letter enclosing it. "Donor. Richd. Henry Lee, grandson of R. H. Lee by hands of G. W. Smith."

On the margin of the page is written:

"Received from the hands of Richard Henry Lee, Esq., by me and in pursuance of his request presented to the American Philosophical Society.

"GEORGE W. SMITH."

1 The autograph correspondence of R. H. and A. Lee.

Below the entry of the donation and on the same page, the following certificate is written:

"Having examined the above Draught we certify it to be in the handwriting of Thos. Jefferson.

"Philad. 9 Sep. 1825.

"Who has been for 40 yrs. Correspt. of T. J.

"W. SHORT,
"EDWARD COLES,

"JN. VAUGHAN."

The document makes four, closely written pages on two sheets of white foolscap measuring 12 × 7 inches.

It appears to be a fair copy, originally without interlineations or erasures, of the Declaration as adopted by the Committee. The omissions made by the Congress sitting in Committee of the Whole are indicated by underscoring the parts omitted and where insertions were made by the Congress they are, for the most part, written on the margin, in a different hand from the body of the text, and, as will be subsequently seen, after the copy had been received by Lee.

The document was originally folded in four for convenience of transmittal and of filing, and at the top of the outside fold of the last sheet is written the following endorsement :

"Declaration of Independence as reported to Congress, July 1777" [sic].

At the bottom of the fourth and last page is written:

"The endorsement is in the handwriting of R. H. Lee, the alterations in that of Arthur Lee."

Jefferson's letter transmitting this manuscript copy of the Declaration to Richard Henry Lee, is as follows:

"TO RICHARD HENRY LEE:1

"PHILADELPHIA, July 8th, 1776. "Dear Sir:-For news, I refer you to your brother, who writes on that head. I enclose a copy of the Declaration of Independ

1 From Lee's Life of R. H Lee, Vol. i, p. 275.

2 Presumably Francis Lightfoot Lee, who was also a delegate from Virginia to the Congress and one of the Signers of the Declaration.

ence, as agreed to by the House, and also as originally framed. You will judge whether it is better or worse for the critics. I shall return to Virginia after the 11th of August. I wish my successor may be certain to come before that time: in that case, I shall hope to see you, and not Wythe, in convention, that the business of government, which is of everlasting concern, may receive your aid. Adieu, and believe me to be your friend and servant."

Jefferson evidently thought that the critics had not improved the document and so Lee understood him; for in his reply,' he says: "CHANTILLY, 21 July, 1776.

"Dear Sir:

"I thank you much for your favor and its inclosures by this post, and I wish sincerely, as well for the honor of Congress, as for that of the States, that the manuscript had not been mangled as it is. It is wonderful, and passing pitiful, that the rage of change should be so unhappily applied. However, the Thing is in its nature so good that no Cookery can spoil the Dish for the palates of Freemen.

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"It will always make me happy to hear from you because I am sincerely your affectionate friend,

"RICHARD HENRY LEE."

R. H. Lee, Jr., in his Life of his grandfather (p. 175) says of the copy thus enclosed, "The original was carefully preserved by Mr. Lee, not only for the interest he felt in its history, but for the great respect and warm friendship he felt for Mr. Jefferson. It has been as carefully preserved by his family, and finally committed to the author."

In this connection it should be recalled that the Virginia Convention, which convened at Williamsburg on the 6th of May, 1776, unanimously adopted on the 15th of the same month a preamble and resolutions, which were prepared by Pendleton, offered by Thomas Nelson, Jr., and powerfully advocated by Patrick Henry, to whom R. H. Lee wrote from Philadelphia on April 20th, exhorting him to propose in the Convention a separation from the mother country: "Ages yet unborn and millions existing at present," Lee wrote, may rue or bless that assembly on which

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Jefferson's MS. Papers, 2d series, Vol. 51, 12, Library of Department of State, Washington.

The

their happiness or misery will so eminently depend." preamble enumerated in strong terms the wrongs done to the United Colonies; the King's proclamation declaring them to be out of the protection of the Crown; and that there was no alternative but abject submission or a total separation. The first resolution was as follows:

"That the delegates appointed to represent this colony in the General Congress be instructed to propose to that respectable body to declare the United Colonies free and independent States, absolved from all allegiance to, or dependence upon, the crown or parliament of Great Britain, and that they give the assent of this colony to such declaration, and to whatever measures may be thought proper and necessary by the Congress for forming foreign alliances, and a confederation of the colonies, at such time and in the manner as to them shall seem best; Provided, the power of forming government for, and the regulations of the internal concerns of each colony, be left to the respective colonial legislatures."'* Richard Henry Lee, by appointment of the delegates from Virginia and in accordance with the instructions conveyed in this resolution, moved in the Congress on June 7, 1776:

"That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be totally dissolved."

The resolution was seconded by John Adams, and was debated from the 7th to the 10th of June, Lee strenuously urging every argument in support of his motion. The Congress finally on the 10th of June ordered the further consideration of the resolution of independence to be postponed to the first day of July and "in the meanwhile, that no time be lost, in case the Congress agree thereto, that a committee be appointed to prepare a declaration to the effect of the said first resolution."

On the evening of that day, the 10th, Lee received by express intelligence of the dangerous illness of his wife at her home in Virginia. He immediately asked for leave of absence and left Philadelphia on the 11th, before the Committee was elected to draught 1 The Virginia Convention of 1776, by Hugh Blair Grigsby, Richmond, 1855, p. 8.

Ibid., p. 17.

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