The book may help to soften a certain bitterness toward Spalding which has been expressed by some writers of our history.
The book is illustrated and beautifully published.
This is Oregon, by Charles L. Emerson, The Geographers, Inc., Portland, 1936, 207 pages. $1.00.
By Lewis A. McArthur
The volume entitled This is Oregon is a sort of informal guide book for the state. It is a publication of over two hunderd pages, and it is very creditably filled with a large amount of useful historical, geographical and statistical information. Oregon has not previously had a publication of this sort, and it ought to fill a long-felt want. The book is well printed and well illustrated, and a great deal of work has been done in assembling the information.
It is probably too much to expect that work of this sort can be made completely accurate in the first production. The reviewer feels that the work is out of balance in some respects, with the result that a few localities receive more attention than they deserve and in contrast to this there are a few places where information is stinted. A few of the illustrations are not particularly well chosen, and some of them have erroneous captions. Besides all this, there are many small errors in proof reading.
The reviewer feels that the publication is well worth while and deserves support, but that should not deter the author from subsequent revision, and a more careful proof reading for later editions.
Story of the Far West, by Joseph G. Masters, Ginn & Company, New York, 1935, 297 pages.
By Arthur Samuel Taylor
This book is designed to provide entertaining reading material dealing with Pacific northwest frontiersmen, and is primarily intended for boys and girls. Mr. Masters, who is principal of the Central High School, Omaha, Nebraska, has traveled extensively through the Rocky Mountain and Pacific coast regions and has a keen appreciation of the difficulties that the early pioneers experienced. Some of the characters treated in Mr. Masters' book are, Old Bill Williams, Jedediah Strong Smith, Joseph L. Meek, James Bridger, and Kit Carson. The author has included a chapter on the discovery and exploration of the Oregon country and one on the Astorians. Included also is a story by the English traveler, George Frederick Ruxton, which was published in Blackwood's Magazine in 1848.
Mr. Masters has drawn his account from secondary sources and as a result, prejudices and inaccuracies found in them are given credence. For example, he quotes Bancroft's account of the Champoeg meeting, reiterating Joe Meek's appeal for a division of the settlers, a story now generally questioned. Mr. Masters, however, gives the child reader no feeling of doubt as to its authenticity.
Whatever the book may lack in the historical sense is supplied by the abundance of its interesting anecdotes, episodes, etc. The author possesses unusual facility in this regard. Reading this book should be, probably, a part of the experience of the normal 12-year old boy, since, by it, his interest in western history will be stimulated.
The book is amply illustrated with reproductions of photographs. Most of them were taken by the author on his travels. The vocabulary, except for an obvious tendency toward modernism: i.e. "rubbed out" for “killed," and other like expressions, is especially good. The liter-
