REVIEWS. 483 



minds, we would fain hope that the next two hundred and fifty years 

 have something better in store for that coming time than chassepots and 

 mitrailleurs ; that the fleets of the future will really be manned by 

 "pacific fishermen," audits armies marshalled to contend only with 

 the unhewn forests and the unmined wealth of regions that invite to 

 such peaceful conquests. The visions of science, at any rate, more 

 readily accord with such aspirations ; and its devotees — though enlisted 

 for a time in the service of war, — flatter themselves that the very per- 

 fection of its destructive implements which science is now achieving is 

 acceleratino; the time when men shall leave war to the savage and the 

 brute. Not in our time assuredly is that happy day to dawn ; but 

 science is even now helping 



" To drill the raw world for the march of mind. 

 Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just !" 



Meanwhile his mind must be cast in a narrow mould who cannot 

 sympathise with the youthful ardour of our author; as he tips his 

 pencil with rainbow hues, and pictures the brightest future for a region 

 he has made so peculiarly his own. We may leave to the men of two 

 and a half centuries hence to judge of its truthfulness, while we con- 

 tent ourselves in the belief that the world at large can scarcely fail to 

 be benefited by the transfer of this great storehouse offish, timber and 

 fur, undoubtedly of ice, probably also of mineral wealth, to an enter- 

 prising people favourably situated for turning its resources to the best 

 account. 



Mr. Dall's volume is less a narrative of travel through scenes rich 

 with strange revelations of wild tribes and a still wilder region, than a 

 journal of personal experiences, and a careful accumulation of all that 

 could be gleaned relating to the geography, history, natural products, 

 and fauna, of this new country, alike from his own observation and 

 from old maps, journals, voyages, books of travel, and all other accessi- 

 ble sources. A journey pursued under the restraints necessarily 

 pertaining to the commission entrusted to this exploring party, 

 precluded much of the adventure which gives a popular charm to the 

 ordinary traveller or hunter's story. Nevertheless there is material 

 enough in this volume to have been wrought up into a sufficiently 

 attractive narrative for the shelves of the lending library had such been 

 the author's aim. He has preferred a different course; and if his 

 columns of statistics, lists of natural history, comparative vocabularies. 



