chester's attention, and naturally he views his subject somewhat in comparison with our own public life. He brings into convenient form much interesting information respecting the political situation in Switzerland, but his historical judgments appear not to be the result always of close study of authorities. Historical Essays, by Henry Adams. (Scribners.) Nine papers covering a tolerably wide range of topics in American, English, and French history. Mr. Adams writes always with a confidence which springs from close acquaintance with his authorities and a positive temper. It is to be regretted that men of his equipment and capacity are not more frequent, both in administrative circles and in the scarcely less formative positions offered by the higher journalism. - Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts, by Newell Dunbar. (Cupples.) An enthusiastic, hearty little book, written calamo currente apparently, but not lacking in discrimination and clearness of judgment. The author seems to have caught something from his subject. There are several views of Trinity Church, exterior and interior, as well as a vignette portrait.

Books for Young People. The Cruise of a Land Yacht, by Sylvester Baxter. Illustrated by L. J. Bridgman. (Authors' Mutual Publishing Co., Boston.) Under this title Mr. Baxter has given a lively and interesting narrative of a trip to Mexico in a private car. He has devised a party of young people with pretty clearly marked surface peculiarities, but the substance of his book is in the description of life in the southwest. Mr. Bridgman has drawn a number of sketches, and altogether the book affords young readers a very agreeable introduction to Mexican scenery, life, and antiquities. The Story of the Odyssey and The Story of the Iliad, by Alfred J. Church. (Macmillan.) Each of these stories occupies a volume. Mr. Church has told them with a directness and straightforwardness which show that he has read his Homer to good purpose. Perhaps it is inevitable, indeed we are not sure that we would wish it otherwise, but he has given a touch of remoteness, not by the use of archaisms, but by a certain formality of English. — Chatterbox for 1891, edited by J. Erskine Clarke. (Estes & Lauriat.) The great characteristic of this work is that, though called an annual, it is a perennial. It makes no pos

sible difference whether this conglomeration of picture and moral anecdote is read in one year or another, or not at all.

Sociology and Political Economy. The Corporation Problem; the Public Phases of Corporations, their Uses, Abuses, Benefits, Dangers, Wealth, and Power, with a Discussion of the Social, Industrial, Economic, and Political Questions to which they have given rise. By William W. Cook. (Putnams.) Mr. Cook draws his illustrations largely from the history of railroads, and seeks to show the relation of corporations to politics. Although he discusses at some length the subject of state socialism in its relation to corporations, especially railroads, he appears to ignore the more pressing problems of municipalities and corporations closely connected with them as tested by socialistic theories. The Divine Order of Human Society, by Robert Ellis Thompson. (John D. Wattles, Philadelphia.) In eight lectures, Professor Thompson treats, under the light of existing problems, of the family, the nation, the school, and the church. There is a unity in his conception and a logic in his method which give his book an unwonted value; for he is possessed by a large idea, and the practical character of his mind leads him to apply this idea in a way to correlate many facts which are liable to an isolated and fragmentary treatment. - Mr. John Rae's Contemporary Socialism (Scribners) has passed into a second and revised edition, in which he has taken the opportunity afforded to bring the subject as nearly up to date as may be, though Socialism, like Electricity, makes history faster than historians can record it. The enlargement is seen particularly in the chapters on Russian Nihilism and The Progress and Present Position of Socialism. The book is now unquestionably the most comprehensive and intelligible analysis of the subject at the disposition of the English-reading student.

A Directory of the Charitable and Beneficent Organizations of Boston, together with Legal Suggestions, etc., prepared by the Associated Charities. (Damrell & Upham, Boston.) A most thoroughly prepared book, and surprising, to any but the few initiated, by its revelation of the intricate network of aid in which society stands enmeshed. Indeed, a careful examination of the book furnishes a cross-section of the

city life of the greatest service to the student of contemporary conditions. The work is of first importance to any one who is bewildered by applications for aid which lie beyond his personal power to satisfy. Principles of Political Economy, by Charles Gide. Translated by E. P. Jacobsen. (Heath.) Professor Clark, of Smith College, who introduces this book briefly to American readers, calls attention to the interest which attaches to a book written in France, translated in England, and published in America. It may be added that the notes supplied by James Bonar, of England, contain references to American writings on the subject. Mr. Gide has an open mind and a judicial temper, so that the reader comes to listen to him with close attention; for he sees that he is in the hands of an impartial student, and not of a doctrinaire or special pleader.

Nature, Science, and Travel. Geodesy, by J. Howard Gore, in the Riverside Science Series (Houghton), is a compact statement of a subject which, under its title, is less likely to attract readers than when this title is expanded. In brief, then, Mr. Gore, starting with an account of some of the primitive notions regarding the earth, and the crude measurements of the size of the globe, proceeds with a good historical sketch of the successive scientific processes by which accurate measurements were obtained, and gives finally a rapid survey of the present operations in the great nations of the world. He writes out of a full knowledge, and yet with a clear conception of masses as well as details, so that the reader has to thank him for an admirable and readable summary. The fourth volume of Garden and Forest (Garden and Forest Publishing Co., New York), covering the year 1891, has the same high character as its predecessors. The magazine meets the needs of an increasing number of persons, those who have not only a love of nature, but leisure to cultivate their affection. The work is of peculiar interest to those who are so fortunate and so wise as to have a summer home in the country. The correspondence is often very suggestive, and there is a refreshing absence of petty personalities. Public action bearing upon the preservation or the destruction of forests is carefully watched, and the journal has thus a very distinct value. Schliemann's Exca

vations, an Archæological and Historical Study, by Dr. C. Schuchardt. (Macmillan.) The translation of a German work which sets forth in orderly fashion the latest results of Schliemann's excavations, as well as condenses and systematizes the accounts of the earlier explorations. There is an introduction by W. Leaf, and a brief but interesting chapter devoted to a sketch of Schliemann's life. Maps, plans, and woodcuts furnish the book fully, and the general reader will find the work a convenient résumé of excavations which practically inaugurated a new era of Hellenic study. Annual Report of the New York Forest Commission for the Year ending December 31, 1890. (James B. Lyon, printer, Albany.) About half this volume is taken up with a catalogue of maps, field notes, surveys and land papers of patents, grants, and tracts situate within the counties embracing the forest preserve of the State, and there are other documents pertaining to the work of the commission ; but there is beside much interesting reading for all who are concerned in forestry. A force of fire wardens has been established, with good results, and special attention is given to the really national subject of the preservation of the Adirondacks. — The Story of the Hills, a Book about Mountains, for General Readers, by Rev. H. N. Hutchinson. (Macmillan.) The author assumes an ignorance of geologic terms on the part of his readers, and seeks to translate a scientific description of mountain form and mountain building into familiar language. He has in his mind travelers in Switzerland or the Scotch and English mountain districts, and undertakes to make intelligible to them the movements of nature which have resulted in the objects they The book is liberally illustrated. Literature and Criticism. The twentieth volume of The Century covers the months from May through October, 1891 (The Century Co.), and reminds one anew of the admirable work which the magazine is doing in familiarizing multitudes of homes in America with forms in pictorial art which lie beyond the scope of common experience and observation. We doubt not that every great work of the Italian masters which Mr. Cole has engraved is looked upon in the original, and will continue to be looked upon in the future, by many Americans with

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an interest greatly exceeding that produced by other works of art not thus made familiar. This is but one feature in the humanizing work which this great magazine is accomplishing. A graceful paper on James Russell Lowell was read at the eighteenth annual dinner of the Harvard Club of San Francisco, by George B. Merrill. The writer takes the diplomatic correspondence of the government and draws off some juicy sentences from Mr. Lowell. In McClurg's tasteful reprints (A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago) we note, in addition to those heretofore mentioned, Moore's Lalla Rookh, Tennyson's Idylls of the King, Carlyle's On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History. The special merit of these editions, aside from the graceful form of the books, lies in the editor's reserve. Wherever the author has provided a preface or notes, this apparatus is given, and thus some interesting matter is revived; but the editor himself refrains from loading the books with his own writing. The Uncollected Writings of Thomas De Quincey, with a Preface and Annotations, by James Hogg. (Macmillan.) Mr. Hogg, who was De Quincey's publisher at one time, has collected in two volumes considerable matter not to be found in the latest edition, that by Masson. The papers sometimes complete articles already published in the American (Riverside) edition, as in The English in China; but sometimes the same matter reappears under another title, as in Suetonius Unravelled, which in the

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Riverside edition is Elius Lamia. To the lover of De Quincey there is little in these two volumes which will not be welcomed.

In the neat little Knickerbocker Nuggets Series (Putnams), three volumes are devoted to Stories from the Arabian Nights, selected from Lane's version by Stanley Lane-Poole. To our surprise, we find that Ali Baba, though included, is not properly a portion of the real Arabian Nights. The scholarly spelling fiend has invaded this sacred inclosure, also, with his 'Ala-ed-din and his 'Efrit, and other severe orthographic prigs.

Art. A book well worth reissuing was Sir Joshua Reynolds's Discourses, and the reprint is in excellent style (McClurg), with Notes and an Historical and Biographical Introduction by Edward Gilpin Johnson, and copies, of varying degrees of excellence, from Sir Joshua's portraits. The discourses themselves are full of strong sense, and an insight which sometimes struggles against English insularity. The introduction is interesting and discriminating. - Recent numbers of L'Art, semimonthly (Macmillan), have etchings after Carolus Duran, L. J. R. Collin, J. Trayer, an interesting series of charcoal sketches by Charles Jacque in a paper devoted to him, a well-illustrated continued paper on the Spitzer Museum, notes on recent public sales in London and Paris, and the customary chronicles. The standard of L'Art is that by which one must measure most publications of its class.

Dakota's Climate.

It matters little how hot or cold, wet or dry, a climate is; the people who live in the country are ready to claim many advantages for the place which they have chosen for their home. The solitary exception to this statement is Dakota. During a residence there of fourteen months -parts of two winters and one summer not a word was said in my hearing on the subject of the climate, except to relate some new horror of it.

The Indians, it was averred, went to Dakota because they thought that no white

man would follow them to such a place. The bitterness of the cold of the winters, the torrid heat of the summers, the wellnigh ceaseless wind, the violent storms of thunder and lightning and rain, the long droughts, the duststorms, the hailstorms, must be experienced to be appreciated. Everything seems to be on an excessive scale in Dakota. The velocity of the wind, when the mercury is standing at 40° below zero, if one is out in it, will take the animal heat out of one in a few minutes. No amount of clothing can prevent intense

suffering. One feels as if one had forgot ten to put on clothes, and were encountering that cruel wind naked. Perhaps the wind is the worst feature of the climate. When it is blowing on a cold night, people who live out on the prairies frequently do not go to bed. They sit all night as close as they can to a red-hot stove. Even then the side that is turned from the stove is cold.

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One day, when the mercury was 25° below zero, and the wind was high, the thermometer where I sat by the stove indicated 115° above zero, and eight feet off the thermometer on the bureau stood at 20°, difference of 95°. It was necessary, on winter nights, to get up at least once to put wood in the stove; but in what was called bad weather this had to be done several times during the night. Of course everything freezes, the eggs within a few feet of the hot stove, the kerosene oil in the corner, the cabbages and turnips and potatoes and meat in the hole in the ground under the house. Every night an iron bucket of live coals is put down into this six-foot hole, to save part of the winter stores from being destroyed by freezing. One hears that people take things into their beds with them, when they want to save them; for it will not do to let things run out in winter. It would be impossible to transport many of them across the prairies, as they would be frozen. All windows and all unnecessary doors are nailed up and chinked as closely as possible before this weather sets in; an embankment of earth is thrown up round the house to keep the wind from coming up under the floor; four or five furrows are run with a plough round the house, at a sufficient distance to save it from prairie fires; and wood for a two weeks' siege, when going out-of-doors will be well-nigh unendurable, is piled high against the wall, and stored under the bed and wherever else space can be found. In this weather, if one winks out-of-doors, the eyelash freezes to the cheek, and has to be thawed out before the eye can be opened. One would scarcely be tempted to relate a second joke, where a wink was necessary to call attention to the point.

The blizzards of Dakota have given her a more widespread fame than any other feature of the climate. Reaching that country at the tail end of winter, and living on

the prairie far from neighbors who could have enlightened us, my sister and I were under the impression that we saw blizzards pretty often. We saw what would go by that name elsewhere. But when we met a Dakota blizzard in the height of the season, we knew that all the other storms were as nothing in comparison. The mercury was far down. The wind caught up the accumulated snows of weeks from the rolling prairies, and lifted them up to meet the descending snows of heaven. The wind beat like waves. The sound was as the roar of a mighty ocean. As it went on, it was as though the solid earth had hurled herself headlong from her moorings, and were rushing with immeasurable velocity through unexplored space.

One hears that many women become insane in Dakota. Some say it is the lonely life; but lives as lonely are borne cheerfully elsewhere. My theory is that insanity is caused by the wind, which intensifies the loneliness. The moaning and wailing, the lashing and swishing, the rushing and roaring, the howling and surging, of the wind go on night and day for weeks at a time, without a moment's lull. It becomes maddening. One feels as if it were beating on the brain. One longs for even one moment of rest from that eternal sound that seems to fill the universe. It is in vain to put one's fingers in one's ears, for the timbers of the little house are creaking; the house itself is swaying on its foundations.

It is not women alone who are depressed by some influence in Dakota. This influence, whatever it may be, seems to extend to the lower orders of creation, also. We had heard that no hen cackled there. This was true of my sister's and mine, but I recall hearing a little cackling at the Agency. There the force of the wind was broken by the stockade and the buildings. A friend at the Agency made us a present of a handsome cock, and we heard his cheerful announcement, on the morning after his arrival, that he was the cock of the roost. We enjoyed the crow from our point of vantage in bed; it was the pleasantest and most homelike sound that had greeted our ears for some time. But it did not last. That day he must have reconsidered things. At any rate, he did not crow the next morning, nor the next, nor ever again, except on one or two rare occasions, when for brief

moment he forgot that he had resolved that there was nothing in this world worth his while to crow about. Gradually he joined the army of the silent ones; no shrill clarion was heard in that hen-house thenceforth. I think that if Gray had lived in Dakota, or Shakespeare, or John Milton, we should never have heard of the "clarion," nor of the "bird of dawning," nor of the "trumpet of the morn," nor of the rear of darkness thin being scattered by any "lively din" made by cock stoutly strutting or otherwise. Our cock's dames felt as he did about life, and took it au grand sérieux. What was there in laying an egg that was worth making a fuss about? So, when they laid an egg, they walked silently from the nest; not a cheery note was heard on that subject or any other from them, except very occasionally a faint chirp, as they stepped about looking for food.

There are many dogs in Dakota, but I had been there some months before I heard one bark. I feel sure that great numbers are born and live out their lives and die without ever a bark. Horses and Indian ponies abound, but I never heard a sound from one of them except once, when a pony gave a little whinny to a large drove feeding on a hillside. They lifted up their heads for a moment, and looked in the direction of the unwonted sound, but they made no response. I think the whinnying one could not have been bred in Dakota.

We heard from neighbors that, terrible as winter was, the summer was worse. They did not exaggerate. The sun bounds up from the level prairie as a flame, and as the day wears on the heat grows more and more intense. When this hot air gets in motion, it is worse than a calm. I thought the house was afire, the first time this hot wind burst up through the floor; it was in the middle of the night. People close windows and doors to keep it out as much as possible, but even under these circumstances the heat is scorching. The earth cracks open on the treeless prairie in rifts ; one almost believes the crust separating the surface from the internal fires cannot be thick here.

But the hailstorms are the ruinous feature of the climate. These are of frequent occurrence, and destroy a crop or a garden so completely that they may be said to be annihilated. Hailstones as large as apples

sometimes fall, and have been known to go through a wooden door, and to kill calves six months old with a blow. We saw none so large as that, but all the crops for hundreds of miles round us were destroyed that summer. The oats and little gardens of the Indians were almost wiped out of existence; our small patch was reduced nearly to ribbons; and the only market garden on the Agency, with its hundreds of heads of cabbage, the largest and best that I ever saw, beets as large as hams and sweet as sugar, pumpkins, watermelons the hugest and most delicious that one ever tasted, potatoes, turnips, - all was a wreck.

These storms in summer come, like the blizzards in winter, with hardly a moment's warning. The clergyman's wife went out one day, for a moment, to her kitchen, which was a separate building, leaving two very young children alone in the house. A sudden storm caught her there, and all the strength that she had could not force the door open against the wind. She was held fast prisoner in the kitchen through one of the worst hailstorms that she ever encountered. Fortunately, no harm came to the baby in the cradle or the wee tot on the floor.

The thunderstorms are appalling even to one who has known storms in the tropics. The lightning is one blaze on three sides of the horizon at once, in some of the storms, and the thunder is awful to hear. One seems in the vortex of the clouds and electrical currents.

Duststorms, like Death, claim all seasons as their own. In winter the snow-banks are strewn thick with dust, and in the burning heat of summer one is blinded, and house, furniture, eyes, mouth, are full of it. These are the storms that throw a tidy housekeeper into despair.

I had almost forgotten that one good thing is said of Dakota, - malaria is unknown there. And the hardest thing said of her is that not a rat is to be found within her borders. Wise little folk!