and Rev. Dr. Murdock, of New Haven; Rev. J. L. Merrick; Professor A. Crosby, of Hanover, N. H.; Professor R. C. Robbins, of Middlebury, Vt.; Professor T. A. Thacher, of New Haven; Professor J. L. Lincoln, of Providence ; Professor E. A. Andrews, of New Britain, Conn.; Professor J. Hadley, of New Haven; Mr. E. S. Dixwell, of Cambridge; Mr. G. B. Dirwell, of Boston; Mr. Charles Folsom, of Cambridge; Professor C. C. Jewett, of Washington; Mr. Charles Short, of Roxbury, Mass.; Dr. Charles Siedhof, of Newton, Mass.; and Rev. J. J. Owen, of New York, corporate members.

The following persons were chosen Officers of the Society for the ensuing year:

President.-PROF. EDWARD ROBINSON, LL.D., New York. Vice Presidents.-William Jenks, d.d., Boston.

Prof. MOSES STUART, Andover.

President WOOLSEY, New Haven.

Corresponding Secretary.-EDWARD E. SALISBURY, New Haven.
Recording Secretary.—JOSEPH W. INGRAHAM, Boston.
Treasurer.-WILLIAM W. GREENOUGH, Boston.
Librarian.-FRANCIS GARDNER, Boston.
Directors.-Prof. CHARLES BECK, P.D., Cambridge.
Prof. B. SEARS, D.D., Newton.

RUFUS ANDERSON, D.D., Boston.
Prof. B. B. EDWARDS, D.D., Andover.
Prof. C. C. FELTON, LL.D., Cambridge.

On motion of Mr. Greenough, it was Resolved: That having heard with regret of the death of Hon. A. H. Everett, a Vice President of this Society, we in common with all the friends of learning deplore the loss which the world of letters has sustained by that event; and That a copy of this resolution be transmitted to the family of the late Mr. Everett.

EVENING SESSION.

The Corr. Secretary read letters: From Mr. John P. Brown, relative to an exhibition of Professor Morse's magnetic telegraph before the Sultân, as follows:

CONSTANTINOPLE, March 1, 1848.

I do myself the pleasure to subjoin herewith, a copy of a diploma, called in Turkish a berût, bestowing upon Professor Morse of New York a decoration, or nichan, of honor, together with a translation of it into English. As this is the first and only decoration which the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire has conferred upon a citizen of the United States, it struck me, when translating it for the Legation, that some account of it would not prove uninteresting to our Society.

There is a young American in the service of the Sultan as a Geologist, etc., Dr. James L. Smith, who was sent out here by the present Hon. Secretary of State, at the request of the Sultàn, made through me during the absence of the Minister Resident. This gentleman, who stands high here in his profession, and has already been able to render the Sultan some important services, being desirous of procuring something from the United States which would be entirely new to His Majesty, and of scientific interest to him, sent for a specimen of the electric telegraph, as perfected by our celebrated countryman Mr. Morse. On its arrival here, the Minister Resident confided its presentation to the Sultân to my care and management; and having soon afterwards an occasion to see His Majesty, I embraced it to inform him of the desire of Dr. Smith to have the honor of exhibiting the telegraph before him. The Sultan immediately named the following day for receiving it; and Dr. Smith, kindly aided by Rev. C. Hamlin of the Armenian Seminary at Bebek, who, to use his own words, lent his assistance on the occasion con amore, accompanied me to the palace of the Sultan at Beglerbey, on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus.

The wires were stretched from the principal entrance of the palace to its union with the harem, a distance of some thirty or forty paces, and the performers were completely concealed from each other by the angle of a door-way, so that, had the Sultan been disposed to doubt the reality of the powers of the instrument, it would nevertheless have been evident to him, that the operators communicated with each other only by means

of its wires. The Sultan was attended by his own personal employés and domestic officers. He was in excellent spirits, and treated us all with the amiableness and graciousness of disposition for which he is much beloved by all who have the honor of approaching him. I may here add for your information, that the Sultân, now about twenty-six years of age, is of middle stature, rather lightly built, and thin, simple in his manners, with dark eyes and beard, and a face slightly marked with the small pox; and though he has but little of the dignified air supposed to belong to all sovereigns, his countenance indicates that his feelings all partake of the most pure benevolence and generosity. Indeed, it is quite impossible to converse with his Majesty, and not be forcibly struck with the evidence, in his own demeanor and personal conduct, of the immense change which has taken place in his country, and particularly in the character of its sovereigns, in the course of the past century, or even half century.

The exhibition of Mr. Morse's telegraph, on this occasion, was perfectly successful, and much to the satisfaction of the young Sultan, who remarked that he had often heard of the wonderful invention, but had never been able, until then, to comprehend its nature. I am happy to say, that His Majesty understood very well the properties of the electric fluid, and perceiving that the alphabet used, (which I had explained in Turkish,) was a purely conventional one, composed a few letters himself, which he desired to have used. So much was he gratified with the exhibition, that he requested me, in a very kind manner, to leave the telegraph as it was, and come again on the following day; saying he would send invitations to all his Ministers and other officers to assemble, on the following morning, to witness its operations. I remarked during this interview with the Sultan, that those about him were quite at their ease, and conversed freely with him. He addressed several questions to me about the United States, and its war with Mexico, expressing great regret that there should ever be a necessity for war.

On the following morning, all the officers of the Government, from the Grand Vezir and the Sheikh ul-Islâm down, assembled at the palace; and Dr. Smith and Rev. Mr. Hamlin again worked the telegraph with entire success. Some of those present, such as the Grand Vezir, Reshid Pasha, formerly Ambassador at London and Paris, 'Aly Effendy, now Pasha, also formerly Ambassador at London, and Sarim Pasha, Minister of Finances, formerly Ambassador at London, had already seen electric telegraphs in those places. All, however, seemed

much pleased with that of Mr. Morse. The Grand Vezir, at the close of the exhibition, requested to have written and sent to him, near His Majesty, the following courtier-like compliment: "To-day, the weather is cloudy and dull, but in the presence of His Majesty every one is cheerful and happy." On this phrase being translated to the young Sultân, he looked around upon his Pashas, and asked them if that was indeed the case; to which all having, of course, responded in the affirmative, he broke out in a joyous, though after the oriental manner, a subdued laugh. After this, he held what might be termed an Eastern levée: he stood at the entrance of the great hall of the palace, and all his officers then present, except the Sheikh ul-Islâm, including the Grand Vezir knelt down and kissed his foot. This was to me a ceremony equally new and interesting, and one which few Europeans have had an opportunity of witnessing. I was not a little surprised at the dexterity with which some of the very fat officers performed this act of homage to their sovereign, and quite as much so at the perfect unconcern with which the young Sultan regarded the whole matter! One of the officers present, M. Carabet Duz, a Catholic Christian, I remember, did not venture to kiss the foot, but with humility pressed his lips upon the floor a few feet distant from the Sultan. His Majesty then expressed thanks to Dr. S., Mr. H. and myself, and requested me to convey his thanks to the Minister for having furnished him with an opportunity of seeing an electric telegraph.

I was then consulted by the Secretary of the Sultan about offering a recompense to Dr. Smith, for his trouble in procuring the telegraph from the United States. The Doctor, to whom, of course, the matter was left, generously disclaimed all desire of receiving any thing for himself, as he had simply sent for the telegraph, and the honor of exhibiting it before the Sultan was all he wished. He requested that whatever honor the Sultan was disposed to confer upon him, might be given to the talented inventor of the telegraph; and I took occasion to recommend this to the Secretary, as a course which would do honor both to the Sultân as a patron of science, and to Mr. Morse as a person of distinguished talents. The object to be conferred, I thought at the moment, would be a snuffbox in diamonds, but I was agreeably surprised to learn from the Secretary, on his return from reporting the result of our conversation to the Sultan, that he had been pleased to confer upon Mr. Morse a nichan, or decoration of a superior grade, in diamonds. The following is a literal translation of the berat, or diploma, which accompanied it:

"In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate:

Sultan 'Abd El-Mejid Khân, son of Mahmûd Khân, son of 'Abd ElHamid Khân,—may he ever be victorious!

The object of the present sovereign Decoration of noble and exalted glory, of elevated place,-of this illustrious, world-conquering Monogram, is as follows:

The bearer of this imperial Monogram of exalted character, Mr. Morse, an American, a man of talents and science, and who is a model of the chiefs of the nation of the Messiah,-may his grade be increased!—having invented an Electric Telegraph, a specimen of which has been exhibited in my Imperial presence; and it being necessary to patronize knowledge, and express our sense of the value of the attainments of those persons who are the inventors of such objects as serve to extend and facilitate the relations of mankind, as well as to show favor to them ;I have conferred upon him, on my exalted part, an honorable Decoration in diamonds, and issued also the present Diploma as a token of my benevolence.

Written in the middle of the month of Safar El-Khair, the year of the Hegira 1264. In Constantinople the well-guarded."

I enclose also a copy of the diploma, in Turkish, for the Society.

From Rev. Elias Riggs, in answer to some inquiries respecting the Albanian language, as follows:

"Respecting the Albanians, I can answer some of your inquiries; with regard to others, it is difficult to get information which can be depended on. I will take them in the order in which you propose them.

To what class of languages does the Albanian belong? In general, no doubt, to the European or Japhetic stock. The mode of declining nouns and verbs; the use of auxiliaries; and the forms of some of the pronouns, as ti, thou; tě, thee; yu, you; mě, me; and im, my; also some of the forms of the verb of existence, indicate this general relation. But so far as I know, the Albanian can not be classed with any of the great families of European languages; certainly not with the Slavic, or German, or Latin, or Greek. Its roots appear to be peculiar to itself, and are to a great extent monosyllabic.

What are its different dialects? This question I have not the means of answering. I only know that there is considerable difference be

h