GEOGRAPHIC LITERATURE 



Newest England. By Henry Demarest 

 Ivloyd. Illustrated. 8vo., pp. 387. 

 New York : Doiibleday and Page. 

 Mr. lyloyd ably traces the devel- 

 opment of those forces in New Zea- 

 land which have given pensions to 

 the old and have made government 

 monopolies of life and accident in- 

 surance, and also of railways and tele- 

 graphs. He describes the government 

 and people as ' ' the least bad this side 

 of Mars" — i. e., they are not perfect, 

 but no others are as good. The rela- 

 tivel}^ enormous public debt, $300 for 

 each man, woman, or child, 2i per capita 

 debt which in this countr_v would amount 

 to twenty-two billion dollars, and the 

 consequently decreasing birth rate are 

 two grave facts which Mr. Lloyd over- 

 looks. 



An Old Indian Vinag:e. By Johan 

 August Udden. Augustana Librar)^ 

 Publications, No. 2. Rock Island, 

 Illinois, 1900. 



Although the author of this inter- 

 esting brochure lays no claim to special 

 skill in archaeology, his work may well 

 serve as a model to local archaeologists 

 throughout the great area covered by 

 the Mississippi drainage system. 



The scene of the explorations con- 

 ducted by Professor Udden at intervals 

 during seven j'^ears from 188 1 is Paint 

 Creek valley, a mile and a half south of 

 Smoky Hill River , in McPherson County, 

 Kansas. The village remains consisted 

 of fifteen low circular mounds from 

 twenty to twenty-five feet in diameter, 

 without particular order of arrangement 

 and covering an area of about twenty 

 acres. The average height of the 

 mounds is about two feet, while some 

 rise only very slightly above -the sur- 

 face of the prairie. 



Excavation revealed axes, hammers, 



polishers, metates, nianos, flakers, pipes, 

 knives, and .scrapers of stone, and awls, 

 hoes, beads, gouges, and other objects 

 of bone. Bones of numerous animals, 

 fishes, and the wild turkey, as well as 

 the valves of fresh-water clams, were 

 also found during the excavations, indi- 

 cating that the former occupants of the 

 site gained a livehhood by hunting as 

 well as by agriculture. 



Perhaps the most interesting object un- 

 earthed from the Paint Creek village — 

 certainly the most interesting from the 

 historical and geographic points of 

 view — is the piece of chain mail illus- 

 trated in the volume, but unfortunately 

 .since lost. The definite origin of this 

 relic of early Caucasian exploration is 

 not known, but as the field of Professor 

 Udden' s researches was unquestionably 

 a part of the Province of Quivira, which 

 the famous expedition of Francisco Vas- 

 quez Coronado penetrated in 1541, and 

 which led to similar expeditions into the 

 same locality during the succeeding half 

 century, the relic is in all likelihood of 

 Spanish origin. 



The Province of Quivira was inhabited 

 in the sixteenth century by the Wichita 

 Indians, who later occupied an extensive 

 area .southward in the present Oklahoma, 

 whence the name of the Wichita Moun- 

 tains and of Washita River. They were 

 the only Indians of the plains who lived 

 in grass houses (such as Coronado' s 

 chroniclers describe as having been seen 

 in the Quivira region), the Pawnees oc- 

 cupying earth lodges, and other plains 

 tribes portable tipis of buffalo hide. We 

 may therefore assume that the Paint 

 Creek village was inhabited by the corn- 

 raising and buffalo-hunting Wichitas, as 

 the relics would seem to show, and prob- 

 ably during the Coronado period, or at 

 any rate during the time of one of the 

 itnmediately succeeding Spanish expedi- 



