Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete eBook
        certain.  He sent a confidential person, Arent Corsen,
with a         bagful of the mineral to New Haven, to take
passage in an English         ship for England, thence to
proceed to Holland.  The vessel sailed         at Christmas, but
never reached her port.  All on board          In the year 1647,
Wilhelmus Kieft himself embarked on board the         Princess,
taking with him specimens of the supposed mineral.          The
ship was never heard of more!  Some have supposed that the
mineral in question was not gold, but pyrites; but we have the
assertion of Adrian Van der Donck, an eye-witness, and the
experiment of Johannes de la Montagne, a learned doctor of
medicine, on the golden side of the question.  Cornelius Van
Tienhooven, also, at that time secretary of the New Netherlands,
declared, in Holland, that he had tested several specimens of
the mineral, which proved satisfactory.  It would appear,
however, that these golden treasures of the Kaa