The success of the company proved itself, for a short period, by the rise in the value of its stock, which soon stood at a high premium in Holland. Various interests, however, were at work in the company to turn its advantages to individual account, and in 1628 an act was passed under the title of "Freedoms and Exemptions granted to all such as shall plant Colonies in New Netherlands." This edict gave, to such persons as should send over a colony of fifty souls above fifteen years old, the title of "patroons," and the privileges of selecting any land, except on the island of Manhattan, for a distance of eight miles on each side of any river, and so far inland as should be thought convenient; the company stipulating, however, that all the products of the plantations thus established should be first brought to the Manhattans, before being sent elsewhere, for trade. They also reserved to themselves the sole trade with the Indians for peltries in all places where they had an agency established. With respect to such private persons as should emigrate at their own expense, they were allowed as much land as they could properly improve, upon satisfying the Indians therefor. These privileges gave an impetus to emigration, and assisted, in a great degree, in permanently establishing the settlement of the country. But from this era commenced the decay of the profits of the company, as with all its vigilance it could not restrain the inhabitants from surreptitiously engaging in the Indian trade, and drawing thence a profit which would otherwise have gone into the public treasury. HARVEY DISCOVERS THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD A.D. 1616 THOMAS H. HUXLEY Contemporary with Galileo, and ranking but little below him in influence upon the modern world, was William Harvey. Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, combined with the truly scientific methods by which he reached, and afterward proved, his great result, has placed his name high on the roll of science. Not only does his work stand at the foundation of modern anatomy and medicine, but it has given him place in the ranks of great philosophers as well. Huxley, himself so long and justly renowned in modern science, rises to enthusiasm in the following account of his mighty predecessor. Harvey was born at Folkestone, England, in 1578, and lived till 1657. He was educated as a physician, studying at Padua in Italy, and was early appointed a lecturer in the London College of Physicians. In his lectures, somewhere about the year 1616 or a little later, he began to explain his new doctrine to his students; but it was not until the publication of his book _Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis_, in 1628, that the theory spread beyond his immediate circle.