(Extract from the Rev. Ethan Smith's "View of the Hebrews.")

"Joseph Merrick, Esq., a highly respectable character in Pittsfield, Mass., gave the following account:—That, in 1815, he was levelling some ground under and near an old wood-shed standing on a place of his situated on Indian Hill. He ploughed and conveyed away old chips and earth to some depth. After the work was done, walking over the place, he discovered, near where the earth had been dug the deepest, a black strap, as it appeared, about six inches in length, and one-and-a-half in breadth, and about the thickness of a leather trace to a harness. He perceived it had at each end a loop of some hard substance, probably for the purpose of carrying it. He conveyed it to his house and threw it into an old tool box. He afterwards found it thrown ont at the door, and again conveyed it to the box. After some time, he thought he would examine it, but, in attempting to cut it, found it as hard as bone. He succeeded, however, in getting it open, and found it was formed of two pieces of thick raw hide, sewed and made water-tight with the sinews of some animal, and gummed over; and in the fold was contained four folded pieces of parchment. They were of a dark yellow hue, and contained some kind of writing. The neighbours, coming in to tee the strange discovery, tore one of the pieces to atoms, in the true Hun and Vandal style. The other three pieces Mr. Merrick saved, and sent them to Cambridge, where they were examined and discovered to have been written with a pen, in Hebrew, plain and legible. The writing on the three remaining pieces of parchment was quotations from the Old Testament. See Deut. chap. vi, from 4th to 9th verse inclusive; also chap, xi., verse 13th to 21st inclusive; and Exodus chap. xiii., 11th to 16th inclusive; to which the reader can refer, if he has the curiosity to read this most interesting discovery. . . . It is said by Calmet that the above texts are the very passages of Scripture which the Jews used to write on the leaves of their phylacteries. These phylacteries were little rolls of parchment whereon were written certain words of the law. These they wore upon their forehead and upon the wrist of the left arm."