In the inside of one of the drawers of this writing-table is written in a quaint old hand a name which is illegible, and “Newport, R.I., 176-,” the final figure of the date not being sufficiently plain to determine it. Desks, secretaries, and chests of drawers have been found with block fronts and these fine shells. All were originally owned in Rhode Island or near there, and nearly all can be traced back to Newport, probably to the same cabinet-maker. This writing-table was bought in 1901 from the heirs of Miss Rebecca Shaw of Wickford, Rhode Island. Miss Shaw died in 1900 at over ninety years of age. The writing-table is now owned by Harry Harkness Flagler, Esq., of Millbrook, New York. It measures thirty-four inches in height and thirty-six and three-quarters inches in length. A door with a shell carved upon it opens into a recessed cupboard. A writing-table like this is in the Pendleton collection, also found in Rhode Island. [Illustration: Illus. 108.—Serpentine or Bow-front Desk, about 1770.] Illustration 107 shows a desk with cabinet top and serpentine or ox-bow front. It is made of English walnut of a fine golden hue which has never been stained or darkened. The doors are of panelled wood, with fluted columns at each side. It was owned in the Bannister family of Newburyport until 1870, when it was given to the Newburyport Library. It now stands in the old Prince mansion, occupied by the Library. [Illustration: Illus. 109.—Bill of Lading, 1716.] Illustration 108 shows a mahogany desk with serpentine front and claw-and-ball feet, owned by Mrs. Alice Morse Earle, of Brooklyn. The serpentine drawers of this piece and the one preceding are carved from a solid block, not quite so thick as is necessary for the block-front drawers. This desk was made at about the same time as the secretary in the last illustration. The bill of lading in Illustration 109 is preserved in the house known as the “Warner House,” in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, built by Archibald Macphaedris, a member of the King’s Council. It was commenced in 1712, and occupied in 1716, but not finished until 1718. Mr. Macphaedris died in 1729, and his widow, upon her second marriage, gave the house to her daughter, married then to Colonel Jonathan Warner, and the house has remained ever since in the possession of their descendants.