[Redactor’s note: Very little is known of Thomas Hariot; his only published works are the ‘Briefe and true report’ (PG#4247) and the posthumous ‘Praxis’, a handbook of algebra. He anticipated the law of refraction, corresponded with Kepler, observed comets, and may have been the first to recognize that the straight line paths of comets might be segments of elongated ellipses. The lost ‘ephemera’ referred to in the text have since been found (since 1876) and a conference was held in 1970 at the U

WHEN I YEARS AGO undertook among other enterprises to compile a sketch of the life of THOMAS HARIOT the first historian of the new found land of Virginia; and to trace the gradual geographical development of that country out of the unlimited ‘Terra Florida’ of Juan Ponce de Leon, through the French planting and the Spanish rooting out of the Huguenot colony down to the successful foothold of the English in Wingandacoa under Raleigh’s patent, I little suspected either the extent of the research I

‘chusing always rather to doe some thinge worth nothing than nothing att all.’ Sir William Lower to Hariot July 19 1611 (see p. 99) To FRANCIS PARKMAN THE HISTORIAN and TRUSTIE FRIEND Who Forty Years ago When we were young Students of History together Gave me a hand of his over the Sea NOW Give I him this right hand of mine with Ever grateful Tribute to our life-long FRIENDSHIP MORIN Custos juris reimprimendi Caveat homo trium literarum [The touching Dedication on the opposite page was penned by

IN the year 1877 the late Mr. Henry Stevens of Vermont, under the pseudonym of ‘Mr. Secretary Outis,’ projected and initiated a literary Association entitled THE HERCULES CLUB. The following extracts from the original prospectus of that year explain this platform: The objects of this Association are literary, social, antiquarian, festive and historical ; and its aims are thoroughly independent research into the materials of early Anglo-American history and literature. The Association is known as