Author: C. Wyllys Betts

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-20

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9781331884248

Excerpt from American Colonial History: Illustrated by Contemporary Medals The accompanying descriptions of Medals illustrating American Colonial History, were compiled by my brother, C. Wyllys Betts, of New York, whose death, in 1887, in the early maturity of an active and useful life, put an end to labors in more than one line of interesting research. The value of coins and Medals, as enduring records of events, has often been emphasized. All original documents and contemporary accounts of occurrences are of peculiar importance to the conscientious historian. Medals are original documents in metal. In studying them we study history at its source. As contributions to the knowledge of the history of portraiture, dress and habits, as indices of then existing information in architecture, geography and the natural sciences, and as means of restoring the knowledge of structures long destroyed, Medals are not to be under-estimated. Medals are a "body of history," or, perhaps, a "collection of pictures in miniature," or "so many maps for explaining ancient geography." One is to look upon a cabinet of Medals as a treasure, not of money, but of knowledge," and "as the means by which a conqueror has sometimes 'discharged a debt to posterity, after he has ruined or defaced a strong place, by delivering a model of it, as it stood whole and tire, so as in some measure to repair the mischiefs of his bombs and cannon.' 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.