Five German monetary treatises written in the seventeenth century have reached the Business Historical Society through the generosity of Walter T. Rosen, Partner in Ladenburg, Thalman & Co. of New York. These books together with a late seventeenth century statement of English mercantilist theory were formerly in the Seligman collection.

The first use of fire for heating or cooking purposes by primitive man marked a long step toward civilization. In historical times, the discovery that coal could be used instead of wood was less revolutionary in its effects, but it meant a great advance in efficiency. The unpublished manuscript of a history of the coal stove has been presented to the Society by Miss Helen E. Keep, the daughter of its author. It reveals unexpected elements of the picturesque in the evolution of this highly practical invention.

The time when Hudson River steamboating was an experiment and an adventure is brought to mind by an old advertisement of the “splendid safety barges ‘Lady Clinton’ and ‘Lady Van Rensselaer,’ towed by steamboats of great power,” operating between New York and Albany in 1826. After the Supreme Court decision in 1824 that the New York laws prohibiting vessels licensed according to the laws of the United States from navigating the waters of the State of New York by means of fire and steam, are repugnant to the… constitution, [of the United States,] and void,” steam vessels had increased and multiplied on the Hudson, and opposition lines sprung up to share the business of Livingston and Fulton's old North River line.

It has proved to be a difficult task to decipher the Medici records, particularly the account books. Three articles of agreement, various letters, and the oldest account book have been transcribed and translated. These materials throw not a little light on the trade of Florence with the Levant. It is expected that the work already begun by Dr. Gertrude Richards will be finished during the coming academic year.

An old hand-worn brown leather book has come into the hands of the Business Historical Society on the varied business activities of a New Englander for the period 1837 t o 1857. We are indebted to Edgar A. Clarke of New Hartford, Connecticut, for this rarity.

In striking contrast to Sam Johnson's erratic dictionary commented on in the last issue of the Bulletin is the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences whose second volume appeared during October (Macmillan). The book covers parts of the alphabet letters “A” and “B” — beginning with an article on alliances by Professor Sidney B. Fay of Harvard University and ending with brigandage, by Carleton Beals.

A Northern man's impression of Richmond and Petersburg, only two months after the surrender of Lee, is preserved in a letter to Frances Stabler, daughter of James P. Stabler, who was Superintendent of Construction on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1831 and '32. The friend who is writing begins with a eulogy on Lincoln, whose assassination is the news of the hour, and then continues with an account of a trip to Richmond which he had just made with his father and someone he refers to as “Brother Eddy,” whether in the literal or the Quaker sense is not clear.

European attempts to collect and preserve records of business history have been described in an article by Dr. Charles Schmidt, archivist of the National Archives of France. It was originally published in the May 15, 1926 issue of La Revue de Paris, and has now been translated into English.

Two books on the history of Birmingham are catalogued in our library whose only resemblance is that both have as subject that famous industrial region in the heart of England. One called the “History of Birmingham to the end of the year 1780” by a W. Hutton was presented by H. B. Vanderblue, Vice-President of the Tri-Continental Corporation of New York. The second book, published in 1929, by G. C. Allen, Lecturer in Industrial Organization of the University of Birmingham is “The Industrial Development of Birmingham and the Black Country, 1860-1927.”

A very valuable collection of business papers of the Barberini and Sciarra-Colonna families of Rome was acquired by the Society last year through the generosity of Mr. Edward J. Frost of Boston. Among the documents is a huge ledger relating to the administration of Monte Libretto, a village in the Sabine Hills, which the Barberini owned for more than a century. A photograph of this volume appeared in an earlier Bulletin. The entries in the ledger are for the closing years of the eighteenth century.

Twenty small memorandum books, one kept in 1859, nine kept in the 60's, and ten kept in the 70's, contain the shrewd observations of a Yankee peddler on events which seemed important to him or merely interested him during his lifetime. On the flyleaf of the 1859 book appears the name of Morillo Noyes of Burlington, Vermont, and the notation “No. 9” on the book suggests that it was one of a series begun earlier. The books kept in the 60's are numbered, but he later abandoned the practice of numbering them, so that it only remains clear that the collection is fragmentary.

Who today can be compared with Robert Owen, the “great manufacturer with a bent for benevolence” who rebelled against the crudities of a vigorously expanding industrial organization? The difference between Owen and our great modern benefactors is perhaps that they are always manufacturers with a bent more or less accentuated for benevolence, while Owen's bent became a fanatical passion to redeem a hostilely suspicious world which ultimately repudiated him.