Rare Books in the Library.

Probably few students appreciate the true value of the collection of books in Gore Hall. It is without doubt the first college library in the country, and is better than many of the public libraries. It does not contain a great many duplicate copies of the commoner books, but it makes up for this in the rarity of others. The most valuable collection of rare books ever given to library is that of Charles Sumner, who left all his books, in themselves a library, to the college. Many of his books are of interest on account of their former owners, two or three having belonged to Louis XIV, one to Milton, and one to Samuel Johnson, besides Bunyan's Bible and Lord Byron's poems of Ossian. Others are interesting on account of their editions several belonging to the original editions of the fifteenth century. Among the rarest is a book of Aquinas' printed by Guttenberg There are also several illuminated manuscripts, one of the "Order of the Passover" in Hebrew, and two or three of the "Officium Beatae Virginis et quaedam alia" and the first engraved map of the world, believed to be a copyright of the one made by Columbus in 1498, representing Greenland and America as part of Asia. Besides these there are some collections of very rare autographs and letters including one of John Milton's.

Among the religious books is a manuscript edition of the Koran, the Gospel in Greek and Latin, and Eliot's Indian Bible, the first Bible published in America; a Greek bible which belonged to Dunster the first president of Harvard, and a copy of the Bay State Psalm book, which was printed in 1640. end was the first book printed in America north of Mexico.