“Let me call your attention to the idea underlying the political and religious covenant of the great Iroquois Confederacy–the most remarkable political structure of North American Indian life. The five tribes (later a sixth was added) called their dwelling-place in New York, between Niagara and the Hudson ‘the Long House’ after the typical Iroquois dwelling in which lived many families. Few Iroquois lived east of Schenectady, though they went to fish in the Hudson River, which they then named (a) ‘Schenectady.’ Schenectady (which in the Indian conception was the region in their extreme east) means, when analyzed, ‘just outside the threshold,’ or ‘without the door.’ While Onondaga was the central fore-place of the Confederacy, the site of Schenectady had special sacredness in the minds of the Iroquois, and the Mohawks, who occupied this portion of the country, were called ‘the guardians of the threshold.’ “Van Curler (Arendt Van Curler), one of the real ‘makers of America,’ who knew the Indians so well, and who made that great covenant with them which kept the Iroquois, despite all French intrigue, bribery, and opposition, faithful (for two centuries, till the Revolution divided even the white men), first to the Dutch, then to the English, knew this Indian reverence for the threshold, and took a just advantage of it. The fact that ‘The Covenant of Corlear’ was made on the threshold of their Long House gave it such sacredness in the eyes of the Indians that it was _never broken_. In all their later oratory, for two centuries they referred to this covenant. Besides calling the governors of New York ‘Corlear’ (the only instance, as Francis Parkman once wrote me, in which the Indians applied a _personal_ name instead of making use of a material object, figuratively, to a governor,–‘fish,’ ‘pen,’ ‘big mountain,’ etc.), the Mohawks of Canada to this day, as I heard them speak it after personal inquiry, call Queen Victoria ‘Kora Kowa,’ that is, ‘the great Corlear’ (Van Curler).” FROM PROFESSOR DR. JOHN P. MAHAFFY. As an authority in the field of Greek antiquities, as well as a scholar of wide learning in various other fields, Professor Mahaffy, of Dublin University, stands in high repute. Among his many published works, in proof of this, are his “Twelve Lectures on Primitive Civilization,” “Prolegomena to Ancient History,” “Social Life in Greece from Homer to Menander,” “Greek Antiquities,” “Rambles and Studies in Greece,” “Greek Life and Thought from Alexander to the Roman Conquest,” “The Greek World under Roman Sway,” and “The Empire of the Ptolemies.” Returning the proof-sheets of “The Threshold Covenant” to the author, he says generously: “Your learning is to me quite astonishing, and I could not venture to criticise you except in a passing way, as I read your proofs hastily. But you will find [on them] rough notes in pencil, only to show what I thought at the moment.”