While Dr. Barton was in London in the first part of the year 1787, he published there a little tract, entitled "Observations on some parts of Natural History: to which is prefixed an account of some considerable vestiges of an ancient date, which have been discovered in different parts of North America." This is called Part I, and is inscribed to his eldest brother. It appears that he intended to have completed his work in one octavo volume, consisting of four parts on the subject of natural history; the first, as he observes in the preface, being a distinct work, having no connexion with that branch of science. This was the first work he ever published. Although in this little book the Dr. evinced much ingenuity and a laudable spirit of research in relation to the antiquities of his native country, the work is evidently the performance of a young writer, and, in fact, the author was then only in the twenty-second year of his age: besides, it was written under the pressure of bodily infirmity, occasioned by ill health, and amidst many discouraging circumstances. Indeed, he soon regretted the 'premature' publication of the work; for he candidly acknowledged its deficiencies, within a few months after its appearance. Speaking of it, in a letter of the 29th of Sept. 1787, addressed to his brother from Edinburgh, he said, "when you write to me, do give me your unreserved opinion concerning this premature performance let me however previously observe, that I am already ashamed of many parts of it; and I am confident my language has made you smile. But perhaps an apology may be urged in my behalf: the subject is entirely new, and the work was written at a time when the mind was in that fickle and inconstant state, so frequently the attendant and consequence of disease. Notwithstanding all its imperfections, I am not sorry that I have given the work to the public: I have at least the credit of having directed the attention of the world to a curious and interesting inquiry— but peculiarly so to an American. You will say, my hypotheses are puerile and crude; but can they be more so than the hypotheses of antiquaries on most subjects?—I think not. You will also say I should have suffered my work to lie on the shelf for a few years; but then the facts I have given to the world would have been all this time unknown." These frank confessions of faults do honour to a young author, more especially, to one who afterwards acquired so much literary fame as the late Professor Barton. They are introduced on this occasion, as a laudable example of candour, in a man of great intellectual powers—as one worthy of being imitated by all young authors too tenacious of their own opinions. Yet after all, the book in question, is by no means so deficient in merit, as its author, himself, seemed to consider it. On the contrary, it does credit to so young a writer.