The venerable Adrian Van der Donck, Doctor of Laws, in his description of the New Netherlands, asserts it from his own observation as an eye-witness.

He was present, he says, in 1645, at a treaty between Governor Kieft and the Mohawk Indians, in which one of the latter, in painting himself for the ceremony, used a pigment, the weight and shining appearance of which excited the curiosity of the governor and Mynheer Van der Donck.

They obtained a lump and gave it to be proved by a skillful doctor of medicine, Johannes de la Montagne, one of the councillors of the New Netherlands.

It was put into a crucible, and yielded two pieces of gold worth about three guilders.

All this, continues Adrian Van der Donck, was kept secret.