Recently one of my friends, Mrs. Christine Adams Jones, brought me a home-made account book, covered in rawhide and hand sewed with linen thread. The book was made and kept by one of her ancestors, Jacob Adams, a farmer-shoemaker of Newbury, Massachusetts. Its pages were yellowed and crackling with age. The first date in it to greet my eye was 1673, the last 1693!

The Baker Library is particularly happy to announce the gift by Mrs. Hugh Bancroft of Boston, of an exceptionally rich and complete collection on the South Sea Bubble. The collection contains books and pamphlets, with many manuscripts, broadsides, Acts of Parliament, and other fugitive items relating to this strange episode. Except, perhaps, for the material scattered on the shelves of the British Museum, no collection rivals this which was assembled by the late Hugh Bancroft, in its fullness for a history of the South Sea speculation.

The Oldest business concern in America is not a railroad nor yet a canal or turnpike. It is not a bank nor an insurance company. It is not a tavern, at least not so far as I know. It is not even a publishing firm, although such firms have seen long life.