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Minor Notices 847 sons therefor ? The new provisions have now been in operation for ten years and seem to give general satisfaction to those who made them. It would seem that the question is a closed one in the state. Do not the children of the state, both white and black, deserve to know the very best reasons for the step ? If the people outside of the state still have two opinions about it, all the more reason why a state historian who is so fair as Professor Riley has shown himself to be in all other topics should de- scribe it fully and dispassionately. Frederick W. Moore. Vol. III. of the Puhlicatio):s of the Mississippi Historical Society (pp. 380) edited by the secretary. Professor Franklin L. Riley, and printed for the society at Oxford, Mississippi, contains several substantial con- tributions to a knowledge of the history of the State. Easily first in im- portance in civil history are Mr. Riley's own papers, well " documentirt," on the Location of the Boundaries of Mississippi, and on the Transition from Spanish to American Control in that region, and a history of bank- ing in Mississippi by Professor Charles H. Brough. Dr. Eugene W. Hilgard's account of the Geological and Agricultural Survey of Missis- sippi is also of value. A high importance must attach to General Stephen D. Lee's papers on the Campaign of Vicksburg, from April 15 to the battle of Champion Hills, May 16, 1S63, inclusive, and on the siege. There are some biographical papers which are useful — and some rhetorical papers which are not. Nova Scotia Arcliives, II. A Calendar of Two Letter-Books and One Commission-Book in the Possession of the Governmetit of Nova Scctia, 1713-1741. Edited by Archibald M. MacMechan, Ph.D., Professor of English Language and Literature at Dalhousie College (Halifax, pp. 270). In 1868 the late Dr. T. B. Akins brought out, at the instance of the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia, a volume of documents from those provincial archives which he had collected, arranged, bound, in- dexed and catalogued with so much care. Upon recent representations from the Nova Scotia Historical Society, Dr. MacMechan was employed to edit another volume from the same collection of documents. Those pieces which he has chosen are among the oldest possessed by the province, and were in some danger of perishing. They are also of high intrinsic value. The first two are letter-books kept at Annapolis, 1713- 171 7 and 1 71 7-1 742, by Caulfeild and subsequent governors, and a commission-book, kept there from May, 1720, to December, 1741, con- taining also many orders, proclamations, instructions, etc. The proc- esses of English government in Nova Scotia during the era of Walpole are well illustrated by the volume. A plan of Annapolis Royal and the fort at the time of the capture in 1 7 10 is added from a contemporary manuscript. The book is edited in a careful and scholarly manner.