BOOK

The History of the Halleck Guards quietly appropriated from different Sources. By T. T. Richards. St. Louis: R. P. Studley & Co., Printers, 1869. 4to, pp, 30, (1). Plate.

This elegant volume can scarcely be said to form an important contribution to the history of the late war, but rather a detailed statement of the movements of a small band of volunteers in Missouri, who were ready for any fate that might befall them; that they suffered but little was a piece of good for

tune.

We suspect that one of the articles was not "quietly appropriated," but a part of the editor's Autobiography.

The volume is printed in a very superior style, the only fault being in the use of headpieces as tail-pieces.

The Editor seems determined that his book shall be scarce, for only ten copies have been printed, and these for presentation. The

plate is a humorous engraving of "Eyes right," in which they are all wrong—the attraction to the "left" being superior to the demands of the "right."

Kemlo's Watch-Repairers Hand-Book; being a complete guide to the young beginner in taking apart, putting together, and thoroughly cleaning the English Lever and other foreign watches, and all American watches. With Illustrations. Boston, A. Williams & Co., 1869. 12 Mo., pp. 92.

This little Hand-book is all that the title claims for it. The watch-owner will find useful articles on the management and care of his "bosom friend," and the watch-repairer valuable instruction in his craft. The Tables are very important, greatly assisting the repairer in his work. The Hand-book is printed in a very elegant manner at the Riverside Press, and will well repay any investment of $1,25.

Memoirs of an American Lady (Vol. 1, P. 335.).—If this work cannot now be got it is a great pity,-it ought to go down to posterity; a more valuable or interesting account of a particular state of socitey now quite extinct, can hardly be found. Instead of saying that "it is the work of Mrs. Grant, the author of this and that," I should say of her other books that they were written by the author of the Memoirs of an American Lady. The character of the individual lady, her way of keeping house on a large scale, the state of the domestic slaves, threatened, as the only known punishment and most terrible to them, with being sold to Jamaica; the customs of the young men at Albany, their adventurous outset in life, their practice of robbing one another in joke (like a curious story at Venice, in the story-book called Il Peccarone, and having some connection with the stories of the Spartan and Circassian youth), with much of natural scenery, are told without peetension of style; but unluckily there is too much interspersed relating to the author herself, then quite young.

C. B.

AMERICA KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS.

To the list of authorities on this subject given in Volume i., p. 342, I have the pleasure to add Father Laffiteau; Bossu*, in his Travels through Louisiana; and though last, not least, Acosta, who in his Naturall and Morall Historie of the East and West Indies, translated by E. G. [rimestone], 1604, 4to, devotes eighty-one pages to a review of the opinions of the ancients on the new world.

The similarity which has been observed to exist between the manners of several American nations, and those of some of the oldest nations on our continent, which seems to demonstrate that this country was not unknown in ancient times, has been traced by Nicholls, in the first part of his Conference with a Theist, in several particulars, viz. burning of the victim in sacrifices, numbering by tens, fighting with bows and arrows, their arts of spinning, weaving, &c. The arguments, multitudinous as they are, adduced by Adair for his hypothesis that the American Indians are descended from the Jews, serve to prove that the known or old world furnished the new one with men. To these may be added the coincidents noticed in

"NOTES AND QUERIES;" burning the dead (Vol. i, p. 308); the art of manufacturing glass (p. 341); scalping (Vol. ii., p. 78). Your correspondents will doubtless be able to point out other instances. Besides drinking out of the skulls of their enemies, recorded of the Scythians by Herodotus; and of the savages of Louisiana by Bossu; I beg to mention a remarkable one furnished by Catlin-the sufferings endured by the youths among the Mandans, when admited into the rank of warriors, reminding us of the probationary exercises which the priests of Mithras forced the candidates for initiation to undergo. T. J.

* Forster, the translator of this work, annihilates the argument for the settlement of the Welsh derived from the word "penguin," signifying "white head," by the fact of the bird in question having a black, not a white head!

CALIFORNIA.

In the Voyage Round the World, by Captain George Shelvocke, begun Feb. 1719, he says of California (Harris's Collection, vol. i., p. 233):

"The soil about Puerto, Seguro, and very likely in most of the valleys, is a rich black mould, which, as you turn it fresh up to the sun, appears as if intermingled with gold dust, some of which we endeavored to purify and wash from the dirt; but though we were a little prejudiced against the thoughts that it could be possible that this metal should be so promiscuously and universally mingled with common earth, yet we endeavored to cleanse and wash the earth from some of it; and the more we did the more it appeared like gold. In order to be further satisfied I brought away some of it, which we lost in our confusion in China."

How an accident prevented the discovery, more than a century back, of the golden harvest now gathering in California! Southwark.

E. N. W.

California (Vol. ii., p. 132).-Your correspondent E. N. W. will find earlier anticipations of "the golden harvest now gathering in California," in vol. iii. of Hakluyt's Voyages, p. p. 440-42, where an account is given of Sir F. Drake's taking possession of Nova Albion.

"There is no part of earth here to bee taken up, wherein there is not speciall likelihood of gold or silver."

In Callendar's Voyages, vol. i., p. 303, and other collections containing Sir F. Drake's voyage to Magellancia, there is the same notice. The earth of the country seemed to promise very rich veins of gold

E. N. W. refers to Shelvocke's voyage of 1719, in which reference is male to the abundance of gold in the soil of California. In Hakluyt's Voyages, printed in 1599-1600, will be found much earlier notices on this subject. California was first discovered in the time of the Great Marquis, as Cortes was usually called. There are accounts of these early expeditions by Francisco Vasquez Coronada, Ferdinando Alarchon, Father Marco de Nica, and Francisco de Ulloa, who visited the country in 1539 and 1540. It is stated by Hakluyt that they were as far to the north as the 37th degree of latitude, which would be about one degree south of San Francisco. I am inclined, however, to believe from the narrations themselves that the Spanish early discoveries did not extend much beyond the 34th degree of latitude, being little higher than the Peninsular or Lower California. In all these accounts, however, distinct mention is made of abundance of gold. In one of them it is stated that the natives used plates of gold to scrape the perspiration off their bodies!

The most curious and distinct account, however, is that given in "The famous voyage of Sir Francis Drake into the South Sea, &c., in 1577," which will be found in the third volume of Hakluyt, page 730, et seq. I am tempted to make some extracts from this, and the more so because a very feasible claim might be based upon the transaction in favor of our Sovereign Lady the Queen. At page 737, I find:

"The 5th day of June (1759) being in 43 degrees wards the pole Arctike, we found the ayre so colde, that our men being grievously pinched with the same, complained of the extremitie thereof, and the further we went, the more colde increased upon us, Whereupon we thought it best for that time to seeke the land, and did so, finding it not mountainous, but low plaine land, till we came within thirty degrees toward the line. In which height it pleased God to send us into a faire and good baye, with a good winde to enter the same. In this baye wee anchored."

A glance at the map will show that "in

"When they [the natives with their king] had satisfied themselves [with dancing, &c.] they made signes to our General [Drake] to sit downe, to whom the king and divers others made several orations, or rather supplications, that hee would take their province or kingdom into his hand, and become their king, making signes that they would resigne unto him their right and title of the whole land, and become his subjects. In which, to persuade us the better, the king and the rest with our consent, and with great reverence, joyfully singing a song, did set the crown upon his head, inriched his necke with all their chaines, and offred unto him many other things, honouring him by the name of Hioh, adding thereunto, as it seemed, a sign of triumph; which thing our Generall thought not meet to reject, because he knew not what honour and profit it might be to our countrey. Whereupon, in the name and to the use of Her Majesty, he took the scepter, crowne, and dignitie of the said country into his hands, wishing that the riches and treasure thereof might so conveniently be transported to the inriching of her kingdom at home, as it aboundeth in ye same. "Our Generall called this countrey Nova Albion, and that for two causes; the one in respect of the white bankes and cliffes, which lie towards the sea, and the other, because it might have some affinities with our countrey in name, which sometime was so called."

Then comes the curious statement:

"There is no part ofearth heere to be taken up wherein there is not some probable show of gold or silver."

The narrative then goes on to state that formal possession was taken of the country by putting up a monument" with "a piece of sixpence of current English money under the plate," &c.

Drake and the bold cavaliers of that day probably found that it paid better to rob the Spaniard of the gold and silver ready made in the shape of "the Acapulco galleon," or such like, than to sift the soil of the Sacramento for its precious grains. At all events, the wonderful richness of the "earth" seems to have been completely overlooked or forgotten. So little was it suspected, until the Americans acquired the country at the peace with Mexico, that in the fourth volume of Knight's National Cyclopædia, published early in 1848, in speaking of Upper California, it is said, very little mineral wealth has been met with "! A few months after, intelligence reached Europe how much the reverse was the case.

T. N.

AMERICA AND TARTARY.

"Un jèsuite recontra en Tartarie une femme huronne qu'il avoit connue au Canada; il conclut de cette étrange aventure, que le continent de l'Amérique se rapproche au nord-oust du continent de l'Asie, et il devina ainsi l'existence du détroit qui, longtemps après, a fait la gloire de Behring et de Cook."-Chateaubriand, Genie du Christianisme, Partie 4, Livre 4, Chap. 1.

Yet, with all deference to the edifying letters of this missionary jesuit, it is difficult to make such distant ends meet. It almost requires a copula like that of the fool, who, to reconcile his lord's assertion that he had with a single bullet shot a deer in the ear and the hind foot, explained that the deer was scratching his ear at the time with his foot.

Subjoined is one more proof of the communication which once existed between America and the Old World:

"Columb disoit mème avoir vu les restes des forneaux de Salomon dans les mines de Cibao."-Chateaubriand, Genie, Notes, &c.

MANLEIUS.

Some time ago I saw an article in the Historical Magazine, in which it was attempted to show who was the author of "War in Disguise." No satisfactory conclusion was arrived at, and I am still in SENEX. doubt. Can you tell me?

New York, March 10, 1869.

The authorship has never been satisfactorily settled. It is attributed to Sir James Stephens, but I have seen an edition in which the title reads, "By the author of Memoirs of the Northern Courts," who was John Brown. I have also seen it so described in English catalogues. Dr. J. L. Sibley, of Harvard College, ascribes it to Stephens. The tract was answered anonymously by an American, generally supposed to be Gouverneur Morris, but sometimes claimed for James Madison. J. S.

West. Illus., 8vo, cloth, 1.75. J. B. Ford & Co.

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