New England and all the colonies. Her uniqueness, historically speaking, lies in the fact that hers was the first soil settled by the United States. New England was peopled by the Puritans and others from Old England; New York by Dutch and English; Pennsylvania by Quakers and Germans and Scotch-Irish; Virginia again by the English but quite different from those of Massachusetts and Connecticut; Maryland by still another element; and so on. Of the states not included among the original thirteen, but admitted to the Union before Ohio: Vermont was settled by Massachusetts and New York; Kentucky by Virginia; and Tennessee by North Carolina; but Ohio was settled by all of these - by elements from each and every state in the confederacy; in other words, Ohio was settled by the people of the United States. Ohio was the first territory to be representative of the entire people, colonists of English Puritans and Cavaliers and Quakers, of Scotch-Irish and Germans. And thus in a certain senese were not the Ohioans truly the first Americans?"

THE ACOLHUANS.

This is the age of the historical novel. It is being produced from the press ad infinitum if not indeed ad nauseum but it has remained for General John Beatty, a life and honored member of the Ohio State Archæological and Historical Society, to be the author of a prehistoric novel. General Beatty's book is therefore unique as a literary feature of the day. This volume, as confessed in the apology, purports to be a free translation from the Norraena of the story of a man living in the tenth century. It is the self-told narrative of the hero Ivarr Bartholdsson, a grandson of a former king of Norway, which king spent many years of his early life in the court of Athelstan of England. Ivarr with his father had drifted to Greenland, whence Ivarr with an adventurous party travels to the land of the Acolhuans who occupied the Ohio valley, and were none other than the Mound Builders of that territory. The book is thenceforth an account of the lengthy sojourn of Ivarr among its prehistoric people, whose customs, life, habitations, government, and social system so far as it went, are ingeniously and in imagination described. The author takes this form to tell what is supposed to be known about these people who left no written records. Ivarr in his wanderings strikes the northern boundary of the present Ohio at the mouth of the Sandusky river where was a chief settlement of the Acolhuans. The hero and his friends assist these people in one of their campaigns against a rival race known as the Skraelings. There is a naval encounter on the lake in their rude boats, and a hand to hand contest with clubs and bows and arrows on the land. Ivarr visits the various chief settlements such as those at Chillicothe, Newark and Marietta. These Mound Building settlements are graphically portrayed, the business and domestic life of

the people as one might suppose it to have been in the days of the tenth century. The author carries the credulity of his reader to the very limit. For instance, he fully describes the girls' and boys' schools at Lekin, the name which he gives to the present site of Newark, in the vicinity of which there still stand to-day vast and complete earth-works of those long lost tribes. These people, as General Beatty pictures them with a graphic pen, reached a stage of considerable civilization, one far beyond that of their successors the Indians. They had a written language, a commerce that extended to foreign nations in South America, and engaged in many of the amusements prevalent among our smartest set. They indulged freely, and often too frequently, in palatable wines, and appear to have been especially fond of gambling. Indeed the indulgence in this pastime got the hero Ivarr into very serious trouble from which he had most thrilling escapes. Ivarr takes a long journey from the country of the Acolhuans to Central America, and Mexico the country of the Taltecs, who, the author states, were the kinsfolk and contemporaries of the Acolhuans of the Ohio valley. There is of course a lovethread running through the story. One lady Gunhild, a princess among the Acolhuans, is the beloved of Ivarr, and with her he subsequently returns to Norway, where they live, in their later life enjoying the memories of their experiences among the Mound Builders of Ohio. General Beatty has woven into this interesting story very much that the Archæologists claim in behalf of these prehistoric people. The "Acolhuans" is not only an excellently imagined story itself, with many thrilling scenes and graphic descriptions, but is, moreover, well calculated to attract our attention to and interest us in the days and life of the Mound Builders, as we see them in our mind's eye. The book is embellished with several illustrations of the rehabilitated cities and localities of the Mound Builders, the special one of which is that reproducing Fort Ancient as it was in the day of its habitation. Fort Ancient the author describes as the city of refuge and the capital of the province. This is in accordance with a much accredited belief that Fort Ancient was the great central capital of these people in the Ohio valley. General Beatty very fittingly dedicates his volume to Colonel E. L. Taylor, a life member of the Ohio State Archæological and Historical Society, and one than whom there are few, if any, so well versed in the life and character of the Mound Builders and their followers the American Indian. General Beatty's book is published by McClelland & Co. of Columbus, Ohio.

THE GREATEST MAN-AN OHIOAN.

A most attractive and interesting little pamphlet has just been published by Mr. S. F. Harriman, Columbus, O., under the pretentious title "The Greatest Living Man." The author is Col. William Jackson Armstrong, the distinguished writer, and who, under Grant's Administration, *8 Vol. XII.

was inspector of foreign consulates. Colonel Armstrong is a most forceful and accomplished writer. His style is more that of the early English essayists than of the modern facile but less elegant wielders of the pen., Colonel Armstrong, in this little monograph, displays a wonderful range of reading, marvelous insight into human nature, and most exact powers of analysis and comparison. He touches upon the leading characteristics of all the great living men, authors, poets, generals, artists, philosophers, scholars, actors, scientists, engineers, inventors, and great captains of industry both foreign as well as American. His essay is a remarkable condensation of vast intellectual sweep and study. He comes to the rather startling conclusion that the greatest living man is none other than Thomas Edison, the inventor, and a native Buckeye, having been born at the little town of Milan, near Norwalk. It is possible that all the world will not agree with Colonel Armstrong's deduction, but, in any event, considering the care and range which he has given to his subject, the Colonel is entitled to very great consideration.