506 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



The Native Races of the Pacific States 

 of North America. By Hubert Howe 

 Bancroft. Vol. I. Wild Tribes. 79*7 

 pages. Price, $5. D. Appleton & Co. 



If it, be true that " the proper study of 

 mankind is man," it is equally true that 

 mankind has shamefully neglected its les- 

 sons. There is, perhaps, no great subject 

 upon which the knowledge attained is so 

 scanty, chaotic, and misleading, as that re- 

 lating to the different sorts of humanity, or 

 the races and varieties of mankind. Into 

 the cause of this it is not necessary here to 

 enter, but it is probably connected, in an 

 intimate manner, with the laws of growing 

 intelligence. Until there arises some per- 

 ception of the value of knowledge, of the 

 relation of facts to principles, and the im- 

 portance of valid generalizations, there will 

 be no such thing as accurate, methodical 

 observations, and the systematic collection 

 of the data requisite for the formation of 

 intelligent opinions. The unfilled gaps in 

 " Spencer's Tables of Descriptive Sociol- 

 ogy " give us the most striking illustrations 

 of the deficiency of trustworthy information 

 regarding the characters, habits, and pecu- 

 liarities, of the different tribes of men. It 

 is a matter of great importance that these 

 deficiencies should be supplied, and the 

 prominence which ethnological studies have 

 latterly assumed, as a part of the general 

 progress of science, gives assurance that 

 the subject will be less neglected in the fu- 

 ture. We have reached a stage in the 

 growth of knowledge concerning the social 

 relations of men which makes it necessary 

 to have the elementary facts exhaustively 

 collated, carefully digested, and thrown into 

 conveniently-accessible forms for general 

 reference and study. 



This necessity has been distinctly seen 

 by the author of the work before us. For 

 many years a resident of San Francisco, in 

 the midst of decaying races and the relics 

 of old civilizations, he was attracted to eth- 

 nological problems, and saw the importance 

 of making the subject a matter of compre- 

 hensive study. He has devoted twenty 

 years to this task, the result of which is a 

 work of encyclopedic scope, the first volume 

 being devoted to the wild tribes of the Pa- 



cific region of North America, and this is now 

 published. The second volume will treat 

 of the civilized nations, to be followed by 

 three volumes on the Mythology, Languages, 

 Antiquities, and Migrations of the races and 

 tribes that are embraced within his scheme. 

 Of the thoroughness with which Mr. Ban- 

 croft has carried on his work, the following 

 extracts from his preface give a good inti- 

 mation : 



" To some it may be of interest to know 

 the nature and extent of my resources for 

 writing so important a series of works. The 

 books and manuscripts necessary for the 

 task existed in no library in the world ; 

 hence, in 1859, I commenced collecting ma- 

 terial relative to the Pacific States. After 

 securing every thing within my reach in 

 America, I twice visited Europe, spending 

 about two years in thorough researches in 

 England and the chief cities of the Conti- 

 nent. Having exhausted every available 

 source, I was obliged to content myself with 

 lying in wait for opportunities. Not long 

 afterward, and at a time when the prospect 

 of materially adding to my collection seemed 

 any thing but hopeful, the ' Biblioteca Im- 

 perial de Mejico,' of the unfortunate Maxi- 

 milian, collected during a period of forty 

 years, by Don Jose de Maria Audrade, lit- 

 terateur and publisher of the city of Mexico, 

 was thrown upon the European market, and 

 furnished me about three thousand addi- 

 tional volumes. 



" In 1869, having accumulated some six- 

 teen thousand books, manuscripts, and pam- 

 phlets, besides maps and cumbersome files 

 of Pacific coast journals, I determined to go 

 to work. But I soon found that, like Tan- 

 talus, while up to my neck in water, I was 

 dying of thirst. The facts which I required 

 were so copiously diluted with trash, that to 

 follow different subjects through this track- 

 less sea of erudition, in the exhaustive man- 

 ner I had proposed, with but one lifetime 

 to devote to the work, was simply impracti- 

 cable. In this emergency, mv friend Mr. 

 Henry L. Oak, librarian of the collection, 

 came to my relief. After many consulta- 

 tions, and not a few partial failures, a system 

 of indexing the subject-matter of the whole 

 library was devised, sufficiently general to 

 be practicable, and sufficiently particular to 

 direct me immediately to all my authorities 

 on any given point. The system, on trial, 

 stands the test, and the index, when com- 

 pleted, as it already is for the twelve hun- 

 dred authors quoted in this work, will more 



