according to their customs in such cases, regularly adopted into one of the aboriginal families, and he informs us that he became very intimate with his new sisters and brothers, and that his new father and mother were passionately fond of him. By affecting great fondness for their sports, and perfect contentment in his new situation, he was soon permitted to consult his own pleasure as to his time and movements;—their vigilance entirely abated, and after frequently increasing their confidence by returning from long excursions, he at length determined to attempt his escape. This determination was greatly precipitated, however, by a most unexpected incident. While he was thus meditating upon the plan of effecting the long cherished object, he was astonished to see an assemblage of four hundred warriors at Chilicothe. They came to make arrangements for an attack on Boonsborough. Boon no sooner heard their destination, than he determined to anticipate them. Accordingly, on the 16th of June, before sunrise, he escaped and reached Boonsborough on the 20th, a journey of one hundred and sixty miles, during which he ate but one meal. He found the fortress in a bad state, but immediately set all hands to repairing flanks, gates, and posterns, and also to forming double bastions, all which was completed in less than ten days. Soon after his return, another of the prisoners, who had escaped from Chilicothe, made his appearance and informed Boon that the Indians had postponed their intended attack for three weeks, in consequence of his escape.

About the 1st of August, Boon set out with nineteen men to surprise an Indian town called Point Creek, situated on the Sciota. Within four miles of their own fort, they met forty Indians on their way to attack them. A desperate engagement immediately ensued, in which Boon and his party came off victorious, and without losing one of their number. They took three horses and all the Indian baggage.

On the 8th of August, Boonsborough was summoned to surrender by the most formidable armament that had ever appeared before its walls. The assailants consisted of four hundred and forty-four Indians, and eleven Frenchmen, the whole commanded by Captain Duquesne, also a Frenchman. Boon requested two days for consideration, which were granted; in the mean time, he brought in through the postern gate all the horses and other cattle that could be collected on the emergency.

On the 9th, in the evening, BooN informed the French commander that he was determined to defend the fort while there was a man capable of handling a rifle.

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The Frenchman then proposed a treaty, the articles of which BooN agreed too, and the enemy required that he should come out with nine men and sign it. Boon with the required number issued forth and signed the documents. The Indians then told him that two Indians must shake hands simultaneously with each of his men; that it was a custom of their's from time immemorial. To this BOON with some reluctance also consented. When the Indians came to perform this part of the ceremony, they found that they had rather underrated the strength of the whites when they matched two Indians to each. As BooN had apprehended, the two savages attempted to hold fast, each couple to their man, but the hardy pioneers threw them off with ease, and rushed to the fort, which was not more than fifty yards distant. In this last attempt, however, one of the nine was unfortunately wounded by a heavy fire, which the enemy showered upon the fugitives.

The Frenchman next attempted to undermine the fort, and commenced operations at the water mark of the Kentucky river. BOON immediately commenced countermining, which the Frenchman no sooner perceived than he gave up the scheme, and on the 20th, raised the siege. During the siege, the beleaguered party had two men killed and four wounded, besides a number of cattle. They killed thirtynine of the enemy, and wounded a large number.

During the absence of Colonel Boon, or rather during his captivity among the Shawnees, Mrs. Boon and her children, supposing the head of the family slain, returned to the house of Mrs. Boon's father on the Yadkin, in North Carolina. Colonel Boon now determined to return into North Carolina in pursuit of them.

He returned to Boonsborough with his family, after an absence of nearly two years, during which time many important Indian battles were won and lost by the hardy adventurers on the western frontiers. Colonel Boon's brother returned to Kentucky with him, and shortly afterward, as the brothers were returning from the licks, Squire was killed by a shot from the Indians. Colonel BooN escaped after a rapid flight, and killing a dog which the Indians had set upon the trail.

The country began now to assume the appearance of cultivation and civilization, and numbers seeing Boonsborough, and hearing fine accounts of the country, came from Virginia and North Carolina, and settled in the new country.

It would be utterly impossible to give even a synopsis of the many adventures, Indian battles, treaties, and hair-breadth escapes in which the subject of our sketch was engaged during the greater part of the

time occupied by the war of independence. It has been seen that BOON and his companions waged war upon their own account, and in all other respects acted as men alike independent of the restraints and the protection of the social compact; nevertheless, many of his late adventures were more or less connected with the interesting events of that period; to the history of the general transactions on the western frontier, we would refer our readers, our business being purely with the adventures of DANIEL BOON.

Many forts were now erected in the vicinity of Boonsborough: every settlement in this new region being generally protected by a palisade or block house. To the defence of these, Boon was often called, and seldom was the call made in vain. He often during this period, also joined adventurous bands and sallied out into the open field to meet the enemy. Such was the life led by him until the defeat of the northern Indians by General Wayne, when he again resumed uninterruptedly, that employment in which he delighted. While he was thus engaged a constant stream of emigration had been pouring into this new and attractive region, until April 1792, when Kentucky was admitted into the Union.

During the time which intervened between Wayne's victory and the establishment of the new state, Virginia had enacted laws, concerning the land titles of the new territory, with which BooN in the simplicity of his heart failed to comply, or if he complied at all, it was done so loosely, that the discoverer of the region was deprived of that very spot for which he had fought so heroically and suffered so much in person and family. These considerations, together with a certain uneasiness at the growing density of the population, induced him again to think of seeking the "far west."

Having lately seen some adventurers returning from an expedition up the Missouri, who described the country bordering on that river in glowing colors, Boon resolved once more to seek a new home in the solitude of the Missouri. Accordingly, in 1798, we find him journeying again to the "new land of promise." "Being inquired of as to what induced him to leave all the comforts of home, and so rich and flourishing a country as his dear Kentucky, which he had discovered and helped to win from the Indians, for the wilds of Missouri? 'Too crowded! too crowded! I want more elbow room,' he replied." He proceeded to what is now called St. Charles, about forty-five miles above St. Louis. Here he found a government somewhat after his own heart, and a country as wild and unreclaimed as he could desire. The only form of government was a sort of military

republic, or rather huntsmen's republic; the chief of which was called commandant. To this office BOON was immediately elected. He retained this office until his new home, like the former, became subject to other laws and other councils.

He continued to reside here, however, until 1813, when he had the misfortune to lose his wife, the faithful companion who had followed him through so many trials and troubles.

After this melancholy event, the now aged adventurer removed to the residence of his son, Major Nathan Boon, where he continued to reside in comfort and repose, amusing himself occasionally by trapping beavers, until the year 1818, when he calmly and resignedly breathed his last at the age of eighty-four years.

The name of BOON will endure as long as the rivers he discovered shall continue to pay their tribute to the great father of waters.

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W. A. C.

DAVID RITTENHOUSE,

LL. D., F. R. S.

THE life of a philosopher affords less scope for the pen of a biographer, than the career of a warrior or statesman. His thoughts make but a small impression in comparison with deeds of arms, but he is nevertheless entitled to equal regard when his mind is employed for the purpose of extending the knowledge of his fellow creatures, or his discoveries and acquirements are such as those of RITTENHOUSE.

This amiable philosopher was born near Germantown, Pennsylvania, April 8th, 1732; his parents emigrated from Holland, and had been distinguished, as well as their progenitors, for probity, industry, and simple manners; they had been proprietors of considerable paper manufactories. The youth of Mr. RITTENHOUSE was passed on the farm of his father in the county of Montgomery, twenty miles from Philadelphia, whither his father removed during the childhood of the son. His peculiar turn of mind there manifested itself; his plough, the fences, and even the stones of the field in which he worked, were found covered with figures denoting a talent for mathematics. His health, never robust, unfitting him for hard labor, his father consented that he should acquire the trade of a clock and mathematical instrument maker; a trunk containing tools which had been the property of a maternal relative, afforded the instruments with which he worked, and he was mainly his own teacher. He early made himself master of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia, through the medium of Mott's translation, and studied the science of fluxions; of this invention he conceived himself at first to be the author, nor was he undeceived for some years, when he ascertained that a contest had been carried on between Sir Isaac Newton and Leibnitz, for the honor of the discovery. On this, Dr. Rush remarks; "what a mind was here! without literary friends or society, and with but two or three books, he became, before he reached his twenty-fourth year, the rival of the two greatest mathematicians in Europe!"

From the age of eighteen to twenty-five, his time during the day