versions hitherto current, the credit is largely due to the scholarship
and patience of Mr. A. J. F. van Laer, archivist of the State of New
York, who has, with great care, gone over all the translations of which
the Dutch originals were accessible to him in Albany, and, the editor
will freely admit with regard to his own portion of the work, has
greatly improved it.

It may be well to mention that, the provinces of Holland and
Zeeland having adopted the reformed calendar in 1582, dates in
Dutch narratives of the seventeenth century will usually be found
expressed in New Style, while the English used Old Style; that the
Dutch were accustomed to use a man's patronymic after his Christian
name, in such a manner that names of the form Jacobsz, Jacobsen,
Jacobzoon (meaning the son of Jacob) are sometimes employed as
middle names, and often with entire omission of the surname, e. g.,
Cornelis Jacobsz for Cornelis May or Cornelis Jacobsz May; and
that the first volume of John Romeyn Brodhead History of the
State of New York ( New York, 1853) still remains the best history
of New Netherland.

Of the illustrations in the volume, the most curious is certainly
the map by "a former commander in New Netherland" ( Minuit?),
which appears as the frontispiece. A correspondent of the editor,
Dr. Johannes de Hullu, of the Dutch National Archives at the Hague,
while examining a bound volume of manuscripts which had once be-
longed to a Dutch antiquary of the seventeenth century, found this
map, hitherto unknown. The antiquary was Arend van Buchell
( Arnoldus Buchellius), who died in 1641. He had been a director
of the East India Company, and from 1621 to 1630 a shareholder in
the West India Company, of which his brother-in-law was one of the
first directors. Portions of his interesting diaries have lately been
published in Holland, ¹ but contain nothing relating to New Netherland.
The map bears the inscription: "Ick hebbe gesien in seecker boeck
byde hand van een die het commando in nieu Neerlant ofte Hollant
gehadt hadde de baye vant lant aldaer de onse eenige colonien gebout
hebben, aldus": or, in translation, "I have seen in a certain book
from the hand of one who had had the command in New Netherland
or [New] Holland the bay of the country where our people have
planted some colonies, thus." Then follows what is apparently a
reference: "siet s," i. e., "look (or looks) south," meaning, perhaps,

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