Excerpt from Historical Collections, Vol. 1: Town Records of Salem, 1634-1659 It is a source of satisfaction to reflect that the Institute, without funds, and relying solely upon the contributions of individuals, and the encouragement of other Societies, has been able to carry on so successfully its appointed work. A Library of twenty-four thousand bound vol umes and fifty thousand pamphlet-s has been gathered together. Its very valuable scientific collection will be hereafter kept at the East India. Marine Hall, under the care of the Trustees Of the Peabody Fund, together with the unique, and in many respects unequalled museum of the East India Marine Society, and will doubtless, when ready for inspection and study, attract general attention for extensiveness and excellence. Frequent meetings have been held both in the field and at the rooms, and many courses of lectures have been given, the result of which is that our community takes a very high rank for general diffusion Of interest in matters of science and history. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.