Book Reviews. 



145 



"The Cabin." The announcement of a new book by Stewart 

 Edward White is always greeted with pleasure 

 by his many readers. One is sure to find within its covers much 

 entertainment of a light, genial character. His latest book, "The 

 Cabin,"* is a collection of minor incidents of camp and trail, char- 

 acter sketches of the mountain folk, ranger life, dog and mule 

 stories. In a concluding "Note" Mr. White adds a good word 

 to the suggestion that has several times been advanced of pre- 

 serving small forests of our finest conifers (other than sequoias) 

 as national parks or monuments. "It is true," Mr. White says, 

 "we have set aside for the public vast tracts of woodland, but 

 the national forests are for use and not for integral preservation. 

 They are intended to be lumbered off, just as private holdings 

 are meant to be lumbered. . . . The forest itself will be preserved, 

 both as a watershed and as a growing and perpetual supply, but 

 it must necessarily change its character. The big trees will all 

 be gone ; and never more will they be seen again. . . . The only 

 hope is in setting aside national parks for their preservation, as 

 we have . . . for other things, such as geysers, battlefields, canons, 

 sequoias. In some of these reservations . . . necessarily grow 

 many specimens of the various pines and firs. But they are only 

 specimens. To preserve intact the dignity and majesty peculiar 

 to these forests it would be necessary to set aside especial sugar- 

 pine parks from districts where such species particularly flourish; 

 and this has nowhere been done. If somewhere along the sugar- 

 pine belt some wisdom of legislation or executive decree could 

 duplicate the Muir Woods on a greater scale, or the Sequoia 

 National Park on a lesser, we would avoid the aesthetic mistake 

 we made in tossing to memory alone the visions of our old 

 primeval forests of the East." M. R. P. 



"Adventures of Wandering through a dark little curio shop 

 James C. Adams." in Honolulu last year, the reviewer came 

 upon a copy of a rare California book, a first 

 edition of Mr. Hittell's "The Adventures of James Capen Adams ; 

 Mountaineer and Grizzly Bear Hunter of CaHfornia,"t published 

 by Towne & Bacon, San Francisco, in i860. At that time, 1910, 

 it was only by a similar stroke of good fortune that one could 

 gain possession of this quaintly titled book at all ; but now comes 

 a new edition, embodying an introduction and a postscript that 



*The Cabin. By Stewart Edward White. Doubleday, Page & Company, 

 New York, 191 1. 283 pages, illustrated with photographs by the author. 

 Price, $1.50. 



^The Adventures of James Capen Adams: Mountaineer and Grizzly Bear 

 Hunter of California. By Theodore H. Hittell, Chas. Scribner's Sons, 

 New York, 191 1. 373 pages, illustrated. New edition. Price, $1.50. 



