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Mr Provost

You

are

to lake

can

that the five pound piries

forly shillings pinces of Gold & the Crowns &

crowns

half

be made with ANNO REGNI DVODECIMO

on the Edges till further order

To Mr John Braint

Newton

Provst of

The Moniers

[blocks in formation]

Fac simile of Autograph of SIR ISAAC NEWTON, A Copy of a letter in the possession of MR Jos: NEWTON.

falling into the error of appending that date, instead of 1700, to the official instruction. Evidently the Master passed his finger over the two figures, 1 and 6, ere the ink with which they were written was dry.

Perhaps Monsieur Chasles may be enabled to institute a comparison between the document now transcribed and those which were said to have been written by the same hand to Pascal ?*

It may not be improper to state that the order itself refers to a process of imprinting letters on the edges of coins, which first came into use in the time of the Commonwealth. The impression was given by passing the coin between two plates, one of which was fixed, and the other moveable, by means of a pinion and rack. The half of the legend was engraved on each of these plates, so that when the coin was carried by the moveable plate to the end of the fixed one, it became lettered as desired. The machine used in Newton's time was of this description, and had been invented by a Frenchman, Mons. Caistang.

Newton, who was born on the 25th of December, 1642 (O. S.), at Colsterworth, in Lincolnshire, lived in the reigns of six monarchs and of one Lord Protector. He held the office of Master of the Mint from 1699 to 1727, and therefore under four sovereigns, viz.: William III., Anne, George I., and George II. This statement is sufficient to demonstrate that the posts of Warden, and Master of the Mint, successively held by Newton, were no sinecures. On the accession of each monarch it became necessary to produce new coins of every denomination, and bearing his or her royal image and superscription. Those only who are intimately acquainted with the process of dieengraving, and minting generally, are cognizant of the anxiety and mental and physical labour involved in such changes. They add much to the cares of the responsible officers of the Mint, and demand extreme attention to minute details and minor points of manipulation on the part of subordinates, which is not required when such alterations are completed. For every reason, let us hope that a very long period may

The French Academy of Sciences is now fully convinced, and freely admits that the Pascal and Newton letters are forgeries, whilst Sir David Brewster has furnished very strong evidence as to the perpetrator of them. From that evidence it seems clear that M. Pierre Desmaizeaux, who resided in England between the years 1692 and 1745, the year of his death, was the author of the whole of the fictitious correspondence. It is known that at Desmaizeaux's death, 120 letters, said to be those of Newton, and 88 letters and notes of Leibnitz, were in the house in which he died. It is highly probable, says Sir David, that Desmaizeaux "spent the last five years of his life in the difficult work of composing the Pascal and Newton correspondence.” His family subsequently obtained £500 for the MSS.

VOL. XII.-NO. V.

A A

elapse before any such transformation is needed in regard to the coinage of these realms !

Previously to Newton's appointment as 'Warden of the Mint, his sole income is stated to have been derived from his Lucasian professorship, and from the produce of the manor of Woolsthorpe, the combined amount of which, though aided by habits remarkably temperate and abstemious, ill accorded with his natural generosity of disposition, and prevented his reliev ing the wants of his poor relations.

In proof of Newton's straitened circumstances before receiving the wardenship of the Mint, it may be adduced that there now exists an entry in the "Journal of the Royal Society," dated January 28, 1674-5, whereby he is excused from making the customary payment of one shilling a week, "on account of his low circumstances, as he represented."

Newton received his knighthood in 1705, at the hands of Queen Anne; and at his decease, which took place at Kensington on the 20th March, 1727, he had a personal estate valued at £32,000. At the time of his death Sir Isaac had attained the age of eighty-five. To him may justly be applied the words of the ancient poet :

"Qui genus humanum ingenio superavit, et omnes,
Restinxit; stellas exortus uti ætherius sol."

FUR-BEARING FOXES.

BY JOHN KEAST LORD, F.Z.S.

ABOUT seventy-five thousand fox skins of various kinds are sold at auction annually in London, by the different fur companies. As we contemplate these figures, we may well feel astonished, and fail to understand from whence so many skins are procured, or how it happens that the entire race of foxes escape being utterly exterminated. Nevertheless, wonder as we may, the fact stands before us, that this wholesale destruction of animal life has been continued year after yearwe may almost say-since the fur trade commenced in North America, and yet the demand remains at a steady average rate, and the needful supply as constantly arrives to meet it.

Eight varieties of the sub-family Vulpine are trapped or otherwise destroyed, that their jackets may supply the furmarket-the black or silver fox, the cross, red, white, blue, grey, kitt, and corsac-fox.

It may be as well, perhaps, to state for the benefit of my non-scientific readers, that the family Canidæ includes animals which are characterized by having the jaws somewhat produced, the legs of equal length, the anterior pair being furnished with five toes, and the posterior with four. The claws are nonretractile, and from a remarkable habit all the members of the group have of walking, as it were, on tip-toe, the term digitigrada is applied to them. Each fore-foot has a rudimentary toe, to which a claw is generally, although not invariably, affixed. There are two well-marked types of this sub-family Vulpine inhabiting North America. In the one type represented by the red fox (Vulpes fulvus), the tail is uniformly bushy, and is made up of long hairs, which are irregularly mixed in amongst and distributed through a short and rather compact fur. The skull is very wolf-like in character; the temporal crests strongly developed, approach each other, and extend rather beyond the parieto-frontal suture; the muzzle is elongated and particularly sharp. The other type is well exemplified by the grey fox (V. Virginianus). An examination of the skull shows us that, in this animal, the temporal crests never approach each other; a space of quite an inch on the parieto-frontal suture separates them. Another marked difference is observable in the shape of the muzzle, which is very short and sharp pointed in this type of fox; and the tail instead of being full and bushy, exhibits, when carefully examined, a regular ridge or mane of bristle-like hairs which extend along its upper line from end to end. These hairs have no short fur intermixed with them, and the longer hair, uniformly clothing the tail, hangs down loosely on each side. "The following diagnosis clearly describes the points of contrast:

"A. Tail with soft fur and long hair, uniformly mixed; muzzle long; temporal crests coming nearly in contact. Vulpes.

"B. Tail with a concealed mane of stiff hairs, without any soft fur intermixed; muzzle short; temporal crests always widely separated. A supplementary tubercle on the lower sectorial. The under jaw with an angular emargination below. Urocyon."

Before we proceed to play the spy upon reynard at home in the wilderness, it will not be time mis-spent to consider very briefly the distinguishing characters which separate the wolves (Lupina) from the true foxes.

If you think it worth the trouble, courteous reader, when you next visit the Zoological Gardens in the Regent's Park, direct your steps towards the cages wherein the wolves are

Baird, "N. Am. Mam.," p. 121.

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