LITERARY NOTICES. 



37i 



mark the author as a man of reflection and 

 originality. 



The World's Progress : A Dictionary of 

 Dates ; being a Chronological and Al- 

 phabetical Record of All Essential 

 Facts in the Progress of Society, 

 from the Creation of the World to 

 the Present Time. With a Chart. Ed- 

 ited by George P. Putnam, A. M. Re- 

 vised and continued to August, 1877, by 

 F. B. Perkins. New York : G. P. Put- 

 Dam's Sons. Pp. 1020. Price, $4.50. 



This old and standard book of reference 

 has been revised, brought up to time, and 

 is now reported as in its twenty-first edi- 

 tion. It contains a great amount of infor- 

 mation, and, when the method of it is un- 

 derstood, it is conveniently available for 

 use ; but it may be observed that if the 

 world's progress had taken place in accord- 

 ance with the plan of this work, it would 

 have been a somewhat mixed and chaotic 

 affair. The chronological tables conform 

 to the idea of historical progression, but 

 the main body of the book consists of Hay- 

 den's " Dictionary of Dates," in which the 

 events of the world are represented, not in 

 the order of time, succession, and causality, 

 but in the alphabetical order, and to this 

 the progress of things has fortunately not 

 conformed. 



History of the Ottoman Turks from the 

 Beginning of their Empire to the Pres- 

 ent Time. By Sir Edward S. Creasy, 

 M. A., late Chief-Justice of Ceylon. First 

 American edition, from the new revised 

 English edition. New York : Henry 

 Holt & Co. Pp. 558. 



The interest of the Eastern question in 

 England has risen to such a point as greatly 

 to stimulate the demand for works relating 

 to the countries now implicated in war. 

 Sir Edward Creasy has thus been led to re- 

 vise and republish his history of the Turks, 

 which has been long out of print, and Mr. 

 Holt has done a good service to American 

 literature in adding the book to his valuable 

 series on the Oriental countries. The repu- 

 tation of its author is a guarantee of its ex- 

 cellence, and in making the book over he 

 seems to have spared no pains in the con- 

 sultation of all authentic sources of informa- 

 tion. Judge Creasy says, in his preface, that 

 the most important historical work on the 

 Turks is by the German Von Hammer, who 



has dealt with the subject so exhaustively 

 that his history, if translated, would make 

 at least twenty English octavo volumes. He 

 has followed this author closely in the recon- 

 struction of his own work, and he speaks of 

 the German treatise to which he is so much 

 indebted in the following terms : 



"Von Hammer's 'History of the Ottoman 

 Empire' will always be the standard European 

 hook on this subject. The history was the re- 

 sult of the labors of thirty years, during which 

 Von Hammer explored, in addition to the au- 

 thorities which his predecessors had made use of, 

 the numerous works of the Turkish and other 

 Oriental writers on the Ottoman history, and 

 other rich sources of intelligence which are to 

 he found in the archives of Venice, Austria, and 

 other states that have been involved in relations 

 of hostility or amity with the Sublime Porte. 

 Von Hammer's long residence in the East, and 

 his familiarity with the institutions and habits 

 as well as with the language and the literature 

 of the Turks, give an additional attractiveness 

 and value to his volumes. His learning is as ac- 

 curate as it is varied ; his honesty and candor 

 are unquestioned ; and his history is certainly 

 one of the best productions of the first half of 

 our century." 



Ethnography and Philology of the Hi- 

 datsa Indians. By Washington Mat- 

 thews. Pp. 245. Washington : Gov- 

 ernment Printing-Office. (No. 7 of 

 " Miscellaneous Publications " of Hay- 

 den's Survey.) 



The author of this monograph, while 

 stationed at a military post in Dakota Terri- 

 tory as assistant surgeon, availed himself of 

 the opportunity thus afforded of studying 

 the manners and customs and the language 

 of the neighboring Indian tribe the Hidat- 

 sas or Minnetarees. Among the subjects 

 treated under the head of ethnography are 

 ceremonies, mythology, marriage, relation- 

 ships, hunting, divisions of time, etc. The 

 philological section is very elaborate, con- 

 taining a systematic grammar of the lan- 

 guage, a pretty full Hidatsa-English die- 

 tionary, an English-Hidatsa vocabulary, and 

 a list of local names. 



Bulletins of the TJ. S. Geological and 

 Geographical Survey of the Terri- 

 tories. Vol. III., No. 4. Washington, 



1877. 



The bulletins of the TJ. S. Geological 

 Survey, issued by Dr. Hayden to facilitate 

 the publication of the work done by the sci- 

 entific men of his staff, and to place before 



