at morning prayers, except on Saturday; knife used by priests in
slaying animals for sacrifice.

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In the State Department thousands of people gazed with awe upon what was
believed to be the original Declaration of Independence as it came from
the hand of Thomas Jefferson. It was, however, only a close copy, since
the government under no circumstances will permit the original to leave
the archives at Washington. But among the original papers were the
petition of the United Colonies to George III., presented by Benjamin
Franklin in 1774; the original journal of the Continental Congress;
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation; an autograph letter of George III.;
and various proclamations issued by Presidents, with their autographs
and letters, by Washington, Franklin, the Adamses, Jefferson, Madison,
Polk, Van Buren, Monroe, Lincoln, Grant, Arthur, and Hayes.

WONDERFUL HISTORIC RELICS.

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The most interesting historic papers were letters penned by Napoleon,
Alexander of Russia, and other foreign potentates, the Webster-Ashburton
treaty signed by Queen Victoria, and a shark's tooth sent as a treaty by
the king of Samoa. Precious relics were Washington's commission as
commander-in-chief of the colonial forces, his sword, his diary, and his
account books and army reports; the sash with which Lafayette bound up
his wound at Brandywine; the calumet pipe which Washington smoked when
seventeen years old; Benjamin Franklin's cane; the sword of General
Jackson; a waistcoat embroidered by Marie Antoinette; wampum made before
the discovery of America; camp service of pewter used by Washington
throughout the Revolution; Bible brought over by John Alden in the
_Mayflower_; and a piece of torch carried by "Old Put" (General Israel
Putnam) into the den of the wolf which he killed.

A section of one of the big trees of California was 20 feet in diameter
at the top and 26 feet at the base.

The dreadful sufferings of persons imprisoned for debt in England, which
led to the founding of Georgia, were recalled by a warrant for the
arrest and imprisonment of one of the unfortunates, issued in 1721.

There also were to be seen a page from the Plymouth records of 1620 and
1621; a land patent of 1628; the royal commission creating the common
pleas court of Massachusetts in 1696; a page from the horrible
witchcraft trials in Salem in 1692; a door-knocker brought to this
country in the _Mayflower_; and portrait