is the same insatiate thirst to know the unknowable, here are the same audacious attempts to tear asunder the veil, the same fashioning and peopling of worlds, laying out and circumscribing of celestial regions, and manufacturing, and setting up, spiritually and materially, of creators, man, and animal-makers and rulers, everywhere manifest. Here is apparent what would seem to be the same inherent necessity for worship, for propitiation, for purification, or a cleansing from sin, for atonement and sacrifice, with all the symbols and paraphernalia of natural and artificial religion. In their speech the same grammatical constructions are seen with the usual variations in form and scope, in poverty and richness, which are found in nations, rude or cultivated, everywhere. Little as we know of the beginning and end of things, we can but feel, as fresh facts are brought to light and new comparisons made between the races and ages of the earth, that humanity, of whatsoever origin it may be or howsoever circumstanced, is formed on one model, and unfolds under the influence of an inspiration."
The second series, beginning with Volume VI, counting the whole work, will comprise the history of the several States under white dominion. Three volumes, when completed, will be devoted to Central America; six to Mexico; two to the North Mexican States and Texas; one to Arizona and New Mexico; seven to California; one to Nevada, Wyoming, and Colorado; one to Utah; two each to the Northwest Coast and Oregon; one to Washington, Idaho, and Montana; one each to British Columbia and Alaska; one to "California Pastoral," or its life and society before the discovery of gold; and one to "California Interpocula," or during the gold-mining epoch; two to "Popular Tribunals," or lynch-law and vigilance committees; and two will be of a miscellaneous character. The latest published volume, the twentieth in the order of numbering, which follows the geographical arrangement, or the eighteenth in the order of publication, which is according to the chronology, is the third of the history of California, and relates the story of that region as a "Territory under the Mexican Republic," from 1825 to 1840. The facts, mostly political, military, and financial in their bearing, are presented in a clear and satisfactory manner, so as to give those who are interested in those lines of development a connected view of their course, both in the territory as a whole, and in its several districts. The secularization of the church missions, which was largely accomplished during this period, and its immediate results, present interesting phases of social development worthy of the attention of the student of that subject. The incursions of foreigners, which have eventually revolutionized the aspect and the fate of the whole region, are traced back to their beginnings in individual visits from abroad which were often accidental, generally transient, and nearly always precarious; for the powers that ruled in those days were disposed to regard strangers much as they would wild beasts. For forty years, California had been vis-
