REVIEWS. 289 tory, pp. 70-79 ; but on the large subject of the rights and duties of trustees the comment is hardly adequate, though the citations are full, pp. 254-259. That is a curious slip in another section to speak of the moral obligation to pay a discharged debt as a good consideration for a new promise to pay it. p. 190. It is now well settled that the true effect of the subsequent promise is to waive the defence of the discharge. In the last pages of the treatise is considered an important question which must be much litigated in the first years of the new law — the effect of a national bankruptcy act in suspending state bankruptcy laws, state insol- vency laws, and state laws regulating common law assignments. The author states the problem very well, but hardly solves it. pp. 427-431. A leading case upon this last question of common law assignments is not cited. Boesev. King, 108 U. S. 379. To be quite fair, the commentary is always a succinct guide to the cases, and upon the whole it succeeds oftener than it fails. b. w. The Law of Mines in Canada. By Wm. David McPherson and John Murray Clark. Toronto : The Carswell Company, Limited. 1898. pp. Ixi, 1294. When the Dominion Government was formed each province had so far developed a mining law of its own that it was deemed inexpedient to try to bring them all under one uniform system. The result is that at the present day there are no* less than six distinct bodies of statutory mining law in Canada. The object of the author has been to collect these numerous statutes of the different governments, and make their contents easy of access by printing them all in one volume with an index and elaborate cross-references. This work is supplemented by short histori- cal sketches of the development of the mining law in the various pro- vinces, by a full dictionary of mining terms, and by some two hundred and sixty pages devoted to the common law of mines. The volume is not a theoretical text-book, but is designed simply for purposes of refer- ence. It is a work to which any one can turn and quickly find the section of the statute applicable to his case, the history of the statute, and the important cases decided on the point. The chapters on com- mon law are eminently practical, composed for the most part of citations from authorities, so moulded together as to give a condensed and com- prehensive view of the various legal points connected with the working of mines. The law is grouped under the heads of Contracts, Leases, Licenses, Water, Support, Ventilation, and the like. The many cases cited — the table contains about 1,300 of them — are mostly decided by English or Canadian courts ; but the principles they stand for are equally applicable to this country, and the book will be an assistance to lawyers here in their search for collateral authority. For miners, mine owners, and mining lawyers resident in Canada, however, the work is especially designed. For them, the common law chapters will be convenient for reference, and the collection of statutes will save much of the time hitherto spent in research. There is an un- doubted place for the book. The rapid increase in importance of the mining industry in the different provinces, together with the multiplica- tion of statutes, as the author well says, " has made a collected statement of the laws a matter of convenience amounting almost to a necessity." G. B. H.
