Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/938

This page needs to be proofread.

928 Revieivs of Books years of his military career, and opened for the exclusive benefit of this writer. The quotations were really from reminiscences of Diaz's mili- tary career related by him to one of his friends a score of years ago, and privately published by the latter. Their circulation has been lim- ited, and the publication of extracts from them in this English biographv seems to have inspired a reproduction in Spanish of selections from the reminiscenses, together with what is termed " an essay in psychological history ", viz., the anonymous author's rather prolix interpretations and interpolations, Poriirio Diaz (Sept. iS^o-Sept. 1865), Ensayo de Psico- logia Histdrica. (Paris and Mexico, Bouret, 1906.) We are given the hint that, for some reason or other, the reminiscences will probably never be made public in their entirety, at least in their original form. But the anonymous author partly promises to conclude the biography from the year 1865. From Trail to Raihi'ay through the Appalachians, by Albert Perry Brigham, Professor of Geology in Colgate University (Boston, Ginn and Company, pp. 188) is an interesting, unpretentious effort to corre- late, within a space suitable for youthful students, the geography and history of the eastern United States. The author, without underrating physiography, is of the opinion that geography in the schools should return somewhat to human interests. Beginning his narrative with Boston and the Berkshires, Professor Brigham passes in turn to the valleys of the Mohawk and Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Ohio, and the Great Valley and mountains of Virginia and the South. With anec- dotes and with illustrations, many of the features and much of the life, past and present, of these regions, are presented in a form suitable to the readers for whom the book is designed. The narrative avoids the precise divisions of a text-book. Roads and the westward movement are its main topics ; and the geography is not taught formally, but is inter- woven with the story. In connection with the bi-centenary celebration of the birth of Franklin, Dr. Julius F. Sachse has issued Benjamin Franklin as a Free Mason (Philadelphia, 1906, pp. viii, 150). The work, compiled at the request of the Masonic Grand Master of Pennsylvania, is an exhaustive treatment of the Masonic side of Franklin's career. As early as 1734, Franklin was elected Grand Master of Pennsylvania. In addition to his activity in the lodges of America, he was interested also in those of England and, still more, in those of France. Franklin carefully retained all his French lodge notices and correspondence, but of the American and English, next to none can be found. Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, iy66-i'j6g. Edited by John Pendleton Kennedy. (Richmond, 1906, pp. xliv, 372.) Pro- ceeding backward from the Revolution, the librarian of the Virginia State Library brings out the third volume of his handsome series of the journals of the Burgesses. He seems to count it as embracing the journals of five sessions; but as his phrases are obscure and in part