Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/298

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
276
A Review

and the experiences of privation and danger in the early stages of the development of each camp are well worked out and told largely in the language of reliable contemporary accounts of participants. Following a realistic survey of the salient features of the rushes to the different localities of gold discovery, the economic, social and political or law-and-order aspects of these "mining advances" are brought out. The fact that these mining communities were about equally divided between British and American jurisdiction, half situated north of the 49th parallel and half south of that line, afforded excellent opportunity to Dr. Trimble to give his history the point of the record of a social experiment and verification. He establishes convincingly that the physiography of these British and American localities and the constituent elements of the population of the respective groups of mining camps north and south of the line were not divergent enough to account for the contrasting types of life and institutions developed in them. In other words, the principle of economic determinism or that of the controlling sway of the self-maintenance mores does not find confirmation in the early history of the "Inland Empire." Moreover, the virtue and efficiency of the British tradition of law and administration quite outshine what is exhibited of social control on the American side. Constituted authorities are equal to the emergencies with one, while vigilance committees and lynch law have to function with the other to secure safety for life and property.

A carefully arranged bibliography of sources used is given. A few lapses in proof-reading occur that need attention when a second edition is issued.F. G. Young.