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BOOK NOTICE. 



History of the Settlement of Upper Canada (Ontario), with 

 SPECIAL reference TO THE Bay [of] Quinte. By W>i. Canniff, 

 M.D., M.R.C.S.E., Professor of Surgery, University of Victoria 

 College, Author of the " Principles of Surgery." Toronto : 

 Dudley & Burns, Printers, 1869. 8vo. pp. xxxii., 671. 

 Several attempts have been made from time to time in Upper Canada 

 to form Historical Societies, but nothing as yet very tangible has come 

 of them. In the United States such associations abound and are 

 creditably sustained. The following ai'e some of them ; The Massa- 

 chusetts Historical Society; The New England Historico-Genealogical 

 Association; The New Hampshire Historical Society; The Khode 

 Island ditto ; The Long Island ditto : The Iowa ditto ; The Chicago 

 ditto. The Canadian Institute receives regularly the Reports issued 

 by a general institution of this class, the American Antiquarian Society. 

 The publications put forth by these and a number of other associations 

 of a similar kind, together with such works as Lossing's Field Books 

 of the Revolution, and of the War of 1812, are likely to preserve for 

 the benefit of future generations in the United States much infor- 

 mation relative to early settlements that would otherwise have been 

 wholly lost. 



Although, however, our Upper Canadian Historical Societies have 

 proved somewhat abortive, they have nevertheless given rise to some 

 publications of importance. The volume, whose title is to be seen 

 above, for example, has grown out of a paper prepared by Dr. Canniff, 

 at the request of a Society organized at St. Catharines a few years ago. 

 It treats especially of the first settlement of the country in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Bay of Quidte, a region of peculiar interest to the 

 author, as being the place of his birth. The work opens with a sketch 

 of Franco-Canadian History, and then proceeds with a narrative of the 

 revolt of the Colonies which now constitute the United States of North 

 America, that revolt having led to the immigration to Western Canada 

 of many of its first inhabitants. The field traversed thus extends be- 

 yond Canadian bounds, and is sufficiently wide. The specimens we 

 shall give of the style and contents of the volume will consist of a few 

 paragraphs descriptive of the several classes of refugees during the 

 period, 1784-1790, with some account of their discouragements and 

 encouragements, and modes of proceeding, on first entering the wilder- 

 ness : — 



