Each must have his new feeding ground—or must improve it. In seeking it he makes highways of travel. Of the former highways vast numbers are traceable in many parts of the country. By their means there will be found a natural order of inhabitants and the reasons therefor. The Indian was not the first here. The pioneer for him was the buffalo. The buffalo was a great roadbreaker, and the Red Man followed his leading; and "until the problem of aerial navigation is solved human intercourse will move largely on the paths first marked by the buffalo." Even our great railroads follow these trails. Most interesting are the instances of this seen in the course of the Baltimore and Ohio, the Pennsylvania, the Chesapeake and Ohio, and the Wabash.

But the buffalo too had a predecessor, or at least he was a later invader. Mound-builders were here before him, and they followed the same laws in finding highways which his brute instinct adopted. Moreover, they improved the natural courses.

But with the deterioration of the civilization to which the mound-building Indians belonged, the art of road-building became lost-for the great need had passed away. The later Indians built no such roads as did their ancestors, nor did they improve such routes on the highways as they found or made. But they collected poll-taxes from travelers along them, setting an example to generations of county commissioners who collect taxes from roads they do not improve."

And so all discovery and conquest since have gone on along these paths, for the reason that they were the natural courses. They were the line of least resistance. They were the outcome of animal instinct. The Mound-builder found them and artificially improved them. They grew over with vegetation and were modified by natural forces. The buffalo again found them. The nomad Indian followed the buffalo, and the White Man followed the Indian.

Here is a clew for the historical tracing not only of the White, but of his predecessors. This method of following the White Man's inroads is now revealing a hundred previously unknown facts concerning his progressive march. It is the object of these volumes to

make known these facts and the reason for the later distributions of White settlements. The author states that the time is now ripe for realizing that "there is a vast deal of geographic-historical work to be done throughout the United States." He earnestly recommends it to local students everywhere.

The general theory upon which the author works changes the previous notion that the "lines of migration were along the principal water-courses." He cites the investigations published by the Bureau of Ethnology to show that "these lines of migration were across the large water-courses rather than up-and-down them." The high lands or water-sheds, not the river-bottoms, were the road courses for the successive migrations of human and animal life.

One fact which is at the same time reason and conclusion from the study of these highways is, that "the Mound-builders were largely a rural people; and in some noticeable instances their works are found more profusely on the smaller streams than on the larger ones. This is shown by the location of their archæological remains; and a good reason for it is found in the fact of the relation of primitive settlements to river floods. That the buffalo was later than the Moundbuilder is inferred from the fact that no buffalo bones are found among mound-builder relics. That mound-builder roads (often much improved) were followed by buffalo trail is seen by still existing evidence. The study of the courses of more primitive men and the paths of the great game animals becomes a historic novel. The numerous maps, charts, tables and citations from early contemporary records add greatly to interest and clearness. A look through these volumes. shows most conclusively that a new source of history is being developed a source which deals with the operation of the most effective causes influencing human affairs. History is being expanded in meaning. It is coming to include the pre-historic.

IOWA CITY

DUREN J. H. WARD

The Story of the Mormons. By WILLIAM ALEXANDER LINN, New York: The Macmillan Co. 1902. Pp. xxiv, 637.

The present controversies about the admission of certain persons to the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States because of their religious affiliations and practices, makes a history of the Mormons a very opportune book. The fact that publishers believe there is a demand for such a book is indicated by the appearance at this time of Mr. Linn's Story of the Mormons and Mr. Riley's The Founder of Mormonism (Dodd, Mead & Co.) Mr. Linn says the purpose of his work "is to present a consecutive history of the Mormons, from the day of their origin to the present writing," and that "the search has been for facts and not for moral deductions.' And yet we fear that we find signs in the same paragraph from which the above quotations were taken indicating that the author's prejudices are too strong to allow him to write a fair and impartial history. Such expressions as "The Prophet's own account.... written with an egoist's appreciation of his own part.......... all showing up, as in a mirror, the character of the persons who gave this church its being and its growth," make us feel that the author has little sympathy for the people whose history he starts out to write. This impression is further confirmed by our author's "words on the sources of information," in which we are told that our author writes from a different standpoint than that taken by H. H. Bancroft in his history of Utah, which, according to Mr. Linn and a quotation given from a Mormon, was written entirely from information given by the Mormons and which aims "to give the Mormon view in the text and to refer the reader for the other side to a mass of undigested notes." The writer of this review knows so little about the Mormons that he is unable to decide whether Mr. Linn has been fair in his selection of incidents and illustrations. But one is made to feel in reading the book that the selection is, as in Uncle Tom's Cabin, from the extreme instead of the typical.

Nevertheless Mr. Linn has written a very readable book, and, if one takes it up understanding his point of view, a very valuable

Our

story and mild criticism on the Mormons and their religion. author is of the opinion that the Mormons gain their power over

people by taking advantage of the natural credulity of man and the desire for a supplement or explanation to our religion as to what goes on after death.

The book is divided into six parts, namely: The origin of the Mormons, The Mormons in Ohio, In Missouri, In Illinois, The Migration to Utah, and Utah. A native Iowan, with his yankee instinct to claim everything, is piqued not to find a division given to the Mormons in Iowa. However, our author makes up for this lack by a treatment of the Mormons in their relation to Iowa and Iowans, under "The Mormons in Missouri," and "The Migration to Utah." The chapter called "From the Mississippi to the Missouri" gives a narrative of the march across Iowa, but says nothing of the way Iowans felt toward the Mormons. In another place (p. 360), we are told, "No opposition to them seems to have been shown by the Iowans, who, on the contrary, employed them as laborers, sold them such goods as they could pay for, and invited their musicians to give concerts at the resting points."

While we may not agree with Mr. Linn that he has written an impartial history, yet we must acknowledge that he has made an excellent book. The carefully prepared table of contents and the copious index, the clear flowing style, the interesting quotations from all classes of people, the large collection of anecdotes and incidents, all go to make the book pleasing reading and a valuable reference work. The publishers have done their part by giving us excellent paper, print, and binding. So that one feels free to recommend The Story of the Mormons to those who wish interesting and instructive reading on that mysterious and awe-inspiring sect which we call the Mormons and who call themselves Latter-Day Saints.

ARTHUR D. Cromwell

HUMBOLDT COLLEGE
HUMBOLDT, IOWA

Georgia and State Rights. By ULRICH BONNELL PHILLIPS, A. M., PH. D. In the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1901. Vol. II. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1902. Pp. 224.

In the early years of the last decade Professor Gilderslieve of Johns Hopkins University, himself of southern extraction and education, stirred up a lively controversy by his assertion in his reminiscences in the Atlantic that the South entered upon the Civil War in defense of State Rights and not because the southern people were primarily or particularly concerned about the institution of slavery. This essay of Dr. Phillips throws a flood of light upon the pros and cons of that controversy, and on this account as well as for various other reasons is well worth study. The narrative of the shiftings and twists of political opinion in Georgia will convince most persons that political theories which affect the currents of politics arise out of the needs or rather the desires of the dominant elements, and that if such theories are not adjustable to changing conditions and cannot continue to do service in the promotion of what the mass of the citi zen body believe to be their social or economic or other vital interests they are altered or abandoned. Human selfishness both in the large and in the narrow sense of the term is the great dynamic force which generally gives practical effect to philosophical theories of the constitution of government.

The narrative begins with an account of the part taken by Georgia in the adoption of the Federal Constitution in 1787. Then, because her political existence seemed to be threatened by South Carolina and the proximity of Indians and Spaniards rendered the lives and property of citizens insecure, the people of that State gave ardent and influential support to the advocates of a strong central national government in the constitutional convention and with astonishing unanimity promptly adopted the Constitution when it was submitted to them. In two chapters we follow the tortuous courses of Georgia politics when the State was attempting to oust the Creek and Cherokee Indians from their lands. If one wants indubitable proof of