The George F. Baker Library has recently purchased a rare eighteenth-century volume, entitled A Familiar Discourse or DIALOGUE Concerning the Mine-Adventure, which was printed by F. Collins in the Old-Bailey, London, 1700. Though no author's name appears in our volume, Halkett & Laing's Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous English Literature, on the authority of the Advocate's Library, Edinburgh, attributes the work to one William Shiers who was a shareholder in the venture.