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708 maps drawn by the geographers of this period. In the second chapter, the continuous narrative of exploration and conquest begins with the first voyage of Columbus.

The author shows that the princes and navigators of this period had plenty of faults. The sovereigns of Spain joined to their zeal in increasing geographical knowledge, and in extending the domain of the holy Roman Church, a lively solicitude for their own power and revenue. The author finds, both from his study of Spanish authorities and from the admissions of Prescott, that Queen Isabella has been far too highly lauded by both Prescott and Irving. Even Columbus, who generally gets so much pity for the ungrateful treatment he received, is shown to have had weaknesses and faults which brought many of his misfortunes upon him.

The American natives do not suffer much from a comparison with their white conquerors. If they sometimes showed a thirst for Spanish blood, it was because the means employed to make them good Catholics and citzenscitizens [sic] were, to say the least, no gentler than those in use in the Old World. "They were more children than wild beasts. . . . . Seldom was the Indian treacherous until he had been deceived."

Mr. Bancroft has consulted many books and manuscripts in preparing this work, and the list of authorities quoted, which occupies forty-eight octavo pages, together with the references in the foot-notes on special topics, give the volume great bibliographical value. The numerous foot-notes give interesting details in regard to ships, trading, methods of administration, of dividing land, and of locating towns. The volume is well supplied with maps, and the chronicle is enlivened by many amusing and illustrative anecdotes.

observatory has enjoyed for four years the revenue derived from an annual subscription of five thousand dollars. The last installments of the subscription expire in the present month, and an effort is now making to replace it with a permanent endowment of one hundred thousand dollars. The director calls attention to the fact that the increased amount of work made possible by the increased income is quite out of proportion to the augmentation of funds, because the expenses are largely the same in either case, and the increase is, therefore, directly available for scientific results. Fifteen assistants are attached to the observatory, and, by the division of labor rendered possible by so large a force, each man may be assigned the kind of work to which he is peculiarly adapted. In this way researches can be carried out in a few years which are beyond the reach of observatories where the corps of assistants is small.

meeting of the society was held at Elmira, New York, August 10th to 17th last, under the presidency of George E. Blackham, F. R. M. S. The record contains a considerable number of papers of interest to specialists and students of microscopy, many of them well illustrated, of which two or three relating to organisms in Lake Erie and the water-supply of Buffalo and a memoir of Charles A. Spencer, the eminent maker of microscopes, deserve especial notice and are of more general interest.

monograph is also embodied in the twelfth annual report of Professor Hayden's "Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories," from which it is extracted. It contains descriptions, abundantly illustrated, of the osteology of the Speotyto, or burrowing owl; the Eremophila Alpestris, or horned lark; the Tetraonidæ, or grouse family; the Lanius, or Shrike; and the Cathartidæ, or buzzards.

sings his unpinioned thought and free religion as well as preaches it. Not that he has made a hymn-book for his