[ 206 ]
Read Nov. 30, 1797.
Sir, PRESUMING your situation in a most respectable and learned Society will warrant the intrusion, I have taken the liberty of addressing you on a subject peculiarly within your province; and it will give me the highest pleasure if it is not altogether unworthy of their notice and your attention.
I am induced to intrude myself on the time of the Society by the following observation of Dr. Lort.
"The monuments of ancient art, noticed in North America, have been so few, that the discovery of any such has a particular claim to the attention of the learned in any part of the globe."
The accompanying objects[1] for investigation were presented me by Lieut. James Ryder of the royal navy, who had the honour of serving his majesty on the late expedition to the West Indies.
"At the west end of the island of Hispaniola, called St. Domingo, he had them delivered to him by a sailor, (who had promiscuously strung them together) and which sailor observed he received them from a runaway negro, who took them out of a cave near Cape Nicholas, which few negroes had the courage to enter," it being traditionally reported a god's cave.
- ↑ These are represented in Plate XVI.
4The
