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Plato Profile Directory 09
Page 09
The most important spoon in the Jamestown collection, and one of the most significant objects excavated, is an incomplete pewter spoon--a variant of the trifid, or split-end, type common during the 1650-90 period. Impressed on the handle (in the trefoil finial of the stem) is the mark of the maker, giving his name, the Virginia town where he worked, and the year he started business. This is the sole surviving "touch" or mark of an American pewterer of the 17th century. The complete legend, encircling a heart, reads: "IOSEPH COPELAND/1675/CHUCKATUCK." (Chuckatuck is a small Virginia village in Nansemond County, about 30 miles southeast of Jamestown.) Joseph Copeland later moved to Jamestown where he was caretaker of the statehouse from 1688-91. He may have made pewter in Virginia's first capital. His matchless spoon found in the old Jamestown soil is the oldest dated piece of American-made pewter in existence.
Higher up in the scale of life we get many instances which show various stages in the same progressive development towards greater care for the safety and education of the young. Among the larger lizards, for example, a distinct advance may be traced between the comparatively uncivilized American alligator and his near ally, the much more cultivated African crocodile. On the banks of the Mississippi, the alligator lays a hundred eggs or thereabouts, which she deposits in a nest near the water's edge, and then covers them up with leaves and other decaying vegetable matter. The fermentation of these leaves produces heat and so does for the alligator's eggs what sitting does for those of hens and other birds: the mother deputes her maternal functions, so to speak, to a festering heap of decomposing plant-refuse. Nevertheless, she loiters about all the time, like Miriam round the ark which contained Moses, to see what happens; and when the eggs hatch out, she leads her little ones down to the river, and there makes alligators of them. This is a simple and relatively low stage in the nursery arrangements of the big lizards.
Also the foresight and prevention, that there be no likely or fit head, whereunto discontented persons may resort, and under whom they may join, is a known, but an excellent point of caution. I understand a fit head, to be one that hath greatness and reputation; that hath confidence with the discontented party, and upon whom they turn their eyes; and that is thought discontented, in his own particular: which kind of persons, are either to be won, and reconciled to the state, and that in a fast and true manner; or to be fronted with some other, of the same party, that may oppose them, and so divide the reputation. Generally, the dividing and breaking, of all factions and combinations that are adverse to the state, and setting them at distance, or at least distrust, amongst themselves, is not one of the worst remedies. For it is a desperate case, if those that hold with the proceeding of the state, be full of discord and faction, and those that are against it, be entire and united.
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