Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/734

 724 Notes and News thousand manuscripts, among which are many letters of Revolutionary personages, civil and military, statesmen, literary men, and others. The Massachusetts State Library has recently come into possession of the log-book of the Constitution for the period from June 26, 1825, to November 7, 1826. The third volume of the Bostonian Society's publications contains an account of the preparation for the expedition to Nova Scotia in 1710, together with papers relating to Faneuil Hall, reminiscences of Boston in 1813, and a map of the harbor in 171 1. The Boston Athenaeum has produced a beautifully made book in Topliff's Travels. This contains letters from Europe in the years 1828 and 1829, by Samuel Topliff, proprietor of the old Merchants' News Room in Boston, printed from the original manuscript owned by the Athenaeum, and edited with a memoir and notes by Ethel S. Bolton. Of most interest perhaps in the volume is Topliff's account of his visit to Lafayette. There has recently been printed at the Riverside Press, for private distribution, a biographical sketch of Nathaniel Goddard, a Boston Mer- chant, i/6/-iS^j. Of note in the Historical Collections of the Essex Institute for Janu- ary are " An Etched Profile Portrait of Washington, by Joseph Hiller, Jr., 1794 ", by Charles Henry Hart, and further Revolutionary letters to Timothy Pickering from George Williams of Salem. The first volume of the Proceedings of the newly organized Cam- bridge Historical Society is at hand. The volume, like the correspond- ing publication of the Massachusetts Historical Society, which it some- what resembles in general form, consists of the reports of the meetings of the society and of the communications made at the meetings. Of most historical moment among these are : " Reminiscences of Old Cam- bridge ", by Charles Eliot Norton ; the address by Reverend Alexander McKenzie, bearing on the Customs of the First Church in Cambridge ; the report of the Committee on the Identification and Marking of His- toric Sites in Cambridge ; and addresses by Messrs. Joseph Willard, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Woodward Emery, dealing with their reminiscences of the late John Bartlett. A History of the Tozi'n of Middleboro, by Thomas Weston (Hough- ton, Mifflin), should prove of interest and service to those interested in the local history of Massachusetts. Another contribution to the same field is Plymouth Memories of an Octogenarian, by William T. Davis (Plymouth, Mass., Bettinger Brothers). The volume is of especial in- terest for its bearing on the history of shipping in Plymouth. " The Physical Evolution of New York City in a Hundred Years, 1807-1907 ", by John Austin Stevens, is one of the more important contributions to the January number of the American Historical Magazine.