374 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is the same insatiate thirst to know the unknowable, here are the same 

 audacious attempts to tear asunder the veil, the same fashioning and 

 peopling of worlds, laying out and circumscribing of celestial regions, 

 and manufacturing, and setting up, spiritually and materially, of 

 creators, man, and animal-makers and rulers, everywhere manifest. 

 Here is apparent what would seem to be the same inherent necessity 

 for worship, for propitiation, for purification, or a cleansing from sin, 

 for atonement and sacrifice, with all the symbols and paraphernalia of 

 natural and artificial religion. In their speech the same grammatical 

 constructions are seen with the usual variations in form and scope, in 

 poverty and richness, which are found in nations, rude or cultivated, 

 everywhere. Little as we know of the beginning and end of things, 

 we can but feel, as fresh facts are brought to light and new compari- 

 sons made between the races and ages of the earth, that humanity, of 

 whatsoever origin it may be or howsoever circumstanced, is formed 

 on one model, and unfolds under the influence of an inspiration." 



The second series, beginning with Volume VI, counting the whole 

 work, will comprise the history of the several States under white 

 dominion. Three volumes, when completed, will be devoted to Cen- 

 tral America ; six to Mexico ; two to the North Mexican States 

 and Texas ; one to Arizona and New Mexico ; seven to California ; 

 one to Nevada, Wyoming, and Colorado ; one to Utah ; two each 

 to the Northwest Coast and Oregon ; one to "Washington, Idaho, 

 and Montana ; one each to British Columbia and Alaska ; one 

 to " California Pastoral," or its life and society before the dis- 

 covery of gold ; and one to " California Interpocula," or during the 

 gold-mining epoch; two to "Popular Tribunals," or lynch-law and 

 vigilance committees ; and two will be of a miscellaneous character. 

 The latest published volume, the twentieth in the order of numbering, 

 which follows the geographical arrangement, or the eighteenth in the 

 order of publication, which is according to the chronology, is the 

 third of the history of California, and relates the story of that region 

 as a "Territory under the Mexican Republic," from 1825 to 1840. 

 The facts, mostly political, military, and financial in their bearing, are 

 presented in a clear and satisfactory manner, so as to give those who 

 are interested in those lines of develojiment a connected view of their 

 course, both in the territory as a whole, and iu its several districts. 

 The secularization of the church missions, which was largely accom- 

 plished during this period, and its immediate results, present interesting 

 phases of social development worthy of the attention of the student of 

 that subject. The incursions of foreigners, which have eventually revo- 

 lutionized the aspect and the fate of the whole region, are traced back 

 to their beginnings in individual visits from abroad which were often 

 accidental, generally transient, and nearly always precarious ; for the 

 powers that ruled in those days were disposed to regard strangers much 

 as they would wild beasts. For forty years, California had been vis- 



