THE 1908 TRANSACTIONS. This After many provoking but unavoidable delays, the Transactions of the annual meeting of the Illinois State Historical Society, held at Springfield, Jan. 30-31, 1908, have at last been issued in well-bound book form. volume, the ninth of the Society's publications proper, compares well with the eight preceding it, in typographical execution, illustrations, and richness of its contributions to Illinois history. The Reports of the Secretary and different committees show the Society to be in flourishing condition, with no diminution of zeal for its maintenance on the part of its members. The first of the two papers called the annual addresses, was delivered by Mr. Horace White, taking for his subject Abraham Lincoln in 1854, the period when "he received his first great awakening and showed his countrymen the manner of man he was"-and also the period when Mr. White's celebrity as a renowned newspaper reporter and writer began. Then follows the second of the principal papers or annual addresses, a scholarly biographical sketch of Stephen A. Douglas by Hon. Adlai E. Stevenson; and a paper of unusual interest by Jos. B. Lemen, on the pact entered into by Thomas Jefferson and Rev. James Lemen, at the close of the Revolutionary War, for the purpose of excluding slavery from Illinois. The several papers that follow these are all remarkably well written, showing tireless research, and familiar knowledge of the themes presented-particularly those from the pens of ladies, namely, The Significance of the Piasa, by Clara Kern Bayliss, Lewis Baldwin Parsons, by Julia E. Parsons, and Literature and Literary People of Early Illinois, by Isabel Jamison. Altogether this volume of Transactions is one of high merit, and fully attests the great value to the State and its people of the Illinois State Historical Society. THE KASKASKIA RECORDS. From the Lakeside Press, Chicago, was recently issued Vol. V of the Illinois Historical Collections, a book of 624 pages, with full index of 56 additional pages. It is the second volume of the Virginia Series presenting the Kaskaskia Records for the period from 1778 to 1790-a companion volume to the Cahokia Records, published in 1907, and by the same editor and translator, Prof, Clarence Walworth Alvord, of the Illinois State University. In this, as in the Cahokia volume, the editor has a clearly written introduction explanatory of certain problems and facts connected with the stirring events preceding and following the conquest of the northwest by George Rogers Clark. These Records, during the years mentioned, drawn from many sources, comprise all that was found available in the Menard Collection and the Kaskaskia manuscripts discovered some years ago stored in the court house at Chester. The documents are all printed literally as written, those in French followed by liberal English translations, and all elaborately annotated. The fifteen chapters-purely arbitrary divisions of the subject-treat of the political life of the country from The Rule of the Virginia Soldiers on to The Beginning of Civil Government, The Court and the Military, The Government of the Magistrates, of the Virginia Commissioners, to the Climax of Anarchy. In some respects the last chapter of the book exceeds the others in historical interest by its relation of the ecclesiastical affairs of the remote French colonies on the Mississippi. The correspondence of Father Pierre Gibault, Bishop Carroll, Tardiveau, St. Pierre, and others, therein contained, throw much light, not only upon matters concerning the church, but also upon the social, domestic and political conditions of that period. The Records of Cahokia and Kaskaskia now published are by no means exhaustive of the material at hand, as other compilations are soon to follow, "when," the editor says, "a fairly complete picture of Illinois during the years 1778 to 1790 will be found in some ten volumes." The Illinois Historical Collections, now comprising five volumes, commenced half a dozen years ago, though not altogether of original and heretofore unpublished data, are, collectively, highly creditable to the State, and of great value to students of Illinois history. Volumes II and V, embracing the Records of Cahokia and Kaskaskia, are distinctively an acquisition to the early history of the northwest, and evince in their comprehensive introductory comments, correctness of translation, and literary erudition, the scholarly ability of their editor, Professor Alvord. CARVER BIBLIOGRAPHY. An interesting bibliography of Carver's Travels, by John Thomas Lee, has been reprinted from the Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin for 1909. MEMOIRS OF GUSTAVE KOERNER, 1809-1896. Published by the Torch Press of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in two volumes of 628 and 630 pages respectively, edited by Thomas J. McCormack, with preface by Judge R. E. Rombauer, of St. Louis. Price $10.00. Governor Koerner was one of that galaxy of distinguished men, noted for superior intellectual endowments, |