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monuments on which the names of English and Spanish explorers are inscribed and his zeal in collecting library material from influential European dealers evidently stood him in fine stead. They secured for him large and efficient co-operation. The freedom of private archives and copyrights, as well as of "public records offices" and "national portrait galleries" was his.
The personal and local factors in historic achievements need to be celebrated to get the annals of any section into the hearts of a people developing a civilization there. Towards this end Professor Meany has labored with enthusiasm, with keen appreciation of his purpose and with ever-widening results. This book registers a large and consistent advance along the line of his former efforts.
To get an idea of the mine that Professor Meany worked for this book in his function of an illuminator of local history we need to note: How the Spanish navigators, Ferrelo, Perez and Quadra, sailed along this coast looking for a "northwest passage" through the continent and hoping they would find none, while the English explorers, Drake and Cook, sought the same here and would have hailed it with supreme delight. Cook's expedition, however, found in the wealth of fur available the material of a lucrative commerce with the Orient, though it failed in spying out a new highway thither directly across the American continent. Efficient English seamen were soon setting their stakes where the Spaniards, on grounds of priority and contiguity, had claimed sovereignty. The plot of international complication thickens around Nootka Sound, when a Spanish Admiral seizes a British crew and vessel in the act of establishing a post on what is now Vancouver Island. England resents this indignity, puts her fleet on a war-footing, when Spain backs down. Then it is that Vancouver is appointed to command some vessels to proceed to Nootka "to receive back in form a restitution of the territories on which the Spaniards had seized, and also to make an accurate survey of the coast, from the thirtieth degree of north latitude northwestward toward Cook's Inlet." There was a hitch in the proceedings of restitution, making it necessary to send home for further instructions; meanwhile there was ample time for a thorough survey of adjacent regions and the making of most serviceable charts. Leisure there was also for recalling the names of all their distinguished friends and compatriots at home whom it would be their delight to honor through applying these names to impressive natural features of the region they were exploring. Many of the faces and of the incidents that were brought before the "mind's eye" of the officers of the Chatham and Discovery while threading the passages between the many beautiful islands of this region during the spring, summer and autumn of 1792 are put before us in finest dress by this book.
