We are thus enabled to designate as her work chapters nine to twenty-one inclusive, and chapter twenty-five. This still leaves to her credit eighteen pages to be located in some other chapter. The rest of the volume, embracing the portions dealing with commerce, manufactures, agriculture, and mining, was written, Nemos says, by himself. Before publication, the sheets on California judiciary were submitted to Justice Stephen J. Field for his approval. The estimate of certain pioneer characters in the California history, together with the adopting of the Mexican view of the conquest of that state by Americans, brought down upon Mr. Bancroft the condemnation of the California Society of Pioneers, who, in 1894, expelled him from honorary membership in their body. (See pamphlet proceedings of the Society of California Pioneers in reference to the History of Hubert Howe Bancroft.) It is a curious fact, however, that the passages which were made the basis of the society's indictment are almost entirely in the first five volumes of the California history, which were written by Oak. He has declared that even the revisions were his own and not Bancroft's.
The History of Utah, another storm-center among the histories, was written by Bates and Bancroft, the former, according to Nemos, preparing twice as much manuscript as the latter. The earlier chapters are by Bancroft, but no more certain assignment of their respective shares in the work can be made from the information at hand.
The History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, as already noticed, was written by Mrs. Victor, with the exception of the first two chapters on Nevada, which were by Bancroft. Mrs. Victor's statement of her work includes these also, perhaps by inadvertence. It is possible that she rewrote them, however, as Mr. Bancroft had admitted that they were out of proportion.
