ART. XI. Historical and Statistical Information respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States; collected and prepared under the Direction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, per Act of Congress of March 3d, 1847. By HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT, LL. D. Illustrated by S. EASTMAN, Capt. U. S. A. Published by Authority of Congress. Parts I., II., and III. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo, & Co. 1851-53. 3 vols.

4to. pp. 568, 608, & 635.

EACH of these volumes is thirteen inches long, eleven inches broad, nearly three inches thick, and weighs exactly ten pounds. An aggregate weight of thirty pounds of "Historical and Statistical Information" about the Indians is enough to daunt even a painstaking critic, who has scruples about the practice of reviewing books before reading them; but these volumes are as attractive in external appearance as they are ponderous. All the resources of the typographical art, of the paper-maker, the designer, and the engraver, have been lavished upon them. It is a luxury for the eye to rest upon the large expanse of their faultless pages, whose virgin whiteness is broken only by the firm impression of the well-cut types, every letter standing out with as much clearness and precision as if engraved in agate. And that the reader may not be sated by mere typographical wealth, the volumes are adorned with a profusion of engravings, all in the most finished style of art. Many of these are of the most costly kind of line engraving upon steel; some are richly colored lithographs, some are admirably executed woodcuts, and others still are specimens of some refinement in the art which we cannot more particularly describe. On the whole, the volumes are the most sumptuous that have yet appeared in our country, and their publication may fairly be said to form an era in the art of American bookmaking.

The volumes merit attention in another respect, besides their beauty and costliness. As there are no Lord Kingsboroughs in this country, willing to lavish a princely fortune upon the publication of a single magnificent work on Indian

antiquities, the enterprise was necessarily assumed by the government. Congress passed a law in 1847, appropriating the modest sum of $5,000 to enable the Department of Indian Affairs, "under the direction of the Secretary of War, to collect and digest such statistics and materials as may illustrate the history, the present condition, and the future [?] prospects of the Indian tribes of the United States." Of course, this appropriation was soon found to be inadequate; $10,000 were added to it by the act of September 30th, 1850, and five months afterwards, $19,361 were given for the same purpose. In July, 1852, three other appropriations, amounting altogether to $28,875, were made for this object; but as Congress was now apparently alarmed at the probable extent and cost of the publication, a proviso was added to the bill that "the work shall be completed in five volumes, and that at least one volume shall be published in each year" till the series shall be finished. If the labor is to be thus expedited, however, more money must be paid for it; and accordingly, on the 3d of March last, a bill was passed appropriating the additional sum of $17,620.50 for carrying on this national enterprise. It appears, therefore, that the aggregate expense of the undertaking thus far has been $80,856.50, or that each volume has cost somewhat over $26,000. As two other volumes are yet to appear, the whole expense may be estimated at $130,000.

The liberality with which this work has been supported appears the more extraordinary, when contrasted with some instances of government parsimony in enterprises of a similar character. When the Scientific Results of the Exploring Expedition were published, the wisdom of Congress limited the edition to one hundred copies. Considering the vast expense of the Expedition itself, and of the preparation of the scientific Reports and the drawings by which they were illustrated, a full corps of savans and artists having been engaged upon them for several years, this limitation of the number of copies was not merely ill-judged, but ludicrous; for the expense of type-setting and engraving being once incurred, the comparatively trifling charge for paper and presswork would have been the only cost of an edition of 1900 extra copies. Yet these Reports did not need the factitious value which is attached

to them by their rarity; they are treasures not merely for the bibliomaniac, but for the scientific world, who have given them a high rank in the highest class to which such publications belong. And this is not the only instance of the illtimed economy of Congress in respect to the few scientific works of merit and interest, the publication of which has devolved upon the government. The invaluable reports of the explorations of Nicolet and Fremont, the geological surveys of Foster and Whitney, and the annual reports of the distinguished head of the Coast Survey, appear in dingy pamphlets the typography of which would be a disgrace to a penny newspaper. What lucky accident or skilful management has rescued Mr. Schoolcraft's Indian researches from a similar fate, we cannot tell. Those who are conversant with the manner in which the annual appropriation bills are framed, and with the influences under which they are passed by both Houses of Congress, might probably solve the mystery, if they saw fit. But we seek not to enter into their secret. These costly volumes, we repeat, have a national character. They are not merely published under government patronage; they form a government work, devoted to a great national object. Commenced at the instigation of the Department of Indian Affairs, carried on under the direction of the Secretary of War, supported by frequent and large appropriations of the public money, and finally published in the most sumptuous style "by authority of Congress," the government is fairly held responsible for them. They will be examined both abroad and at home with interest and attention.

The first volume is devoted chiefly, but not exclusively, to Indian antiquities and the few traces which remain of the history of the aborigines before the whites landed upon this continent. It contains little or nothing that is new, as a collection even of materials previously well known it is very incomplete, and not even an attempt is made to systematize the information, or to deduce from it any general conclusions or theories which may throw light upon the ancient history of the Indian race, or the revolutions which it may have undergone. The only object of the author or editor appears to have been, to bring together matter enough to fill a large vo

lume, no matter whether it bore an immediate or remote relation to the principal subject, or whether the parts bore any relation whatever to each other. Thus, the history of the exploration of the Mississippi River was sufficiently well known, and the exploration itself was long ago completed. The last step in it was taken by Mr. Schoolcraft himself, in 1832, when, in an expedition under government auspices, he traced the source of the river to Itasca lake, and published a detailed account of his journey in an illustrated volume, two years afterwards. We see no reason for treating the reader with the crambe decies repetita of this successful journey, which was neither a difficult nor eventful one, or for prefacing it with a long account of the other explorers of the same stream, from De Soto downwards, or, still less, for intruding the matter into the midst of a volume on Indian antiquities. Quite as little can be said for the intrusion of the meagre and valueless essay, which follows, on the Gold Deposits of California. It contains a very bald account of the discovery which has proved so fruitful and important, of the imperfect mineralogical examination of the specimens first sent to the War Office, of ancient gold mines and those found in South America, and a good deal of loose speculation about the extent and character of the deposits, and the probability of finding other veins of the metal in the more elevated rocks. Not a fact is given which had not been made known in the newspapers long before the publication of this first volume in 1851. Of the whole essay, chapter, or section — whichever the author may please to call it - we may well say,

"The thing itself is neither rich nor rare;"

and when we find it interpolated into a huge volume about the native tribes of North America, we have no feeling

Next, in the order or disorder of Mr. Schoolcraft's first volume, is a section purporting to be "Mineralogical and Geographical Notices, denoting the value of aboriginal territory "; —a magnificent title for a small collection of scraps, which appear to have been cut out of the newspapers, about tin on the Kansas river, lead ores in Wisconsin and Iowa, native

silver in Michigan, a recent unsuccessful attempt to obtain salt by deep boring in Onondaga county, and the geography of the Genesee country, in western New York. The astonished reader may well ask, What has all this to do with the North American Indians? And this inquiry seems still more pertinent, when, after skipping ten or a dozen pages, he finds the next chapter or section to relate to the "Existing Geological Action of the North American Lakes." If there were any novelty or value in the facts here communicated, we might pardon the intrusion of them into the discussion of a theme with which they have no conceivable relation or union. But the passage contains nothing which was not familiarly known to every careless voyager over our Great Lakes, who has had curiosity enough to observe the configuration of the shores along which he sailed. The oft repeated and still oftener described phenomena of ancient disruption and upheaval, of abrasion and drift, which the well-trained geologist now hardly stops to notice, are here enumerated as if the only object were to fill out a paragraph, and are sometimes described with wearisome minuteness. Of the value of the general remarks suggested by these desultory notices of very common geological phenomena, the following may serve as a specimen.

"7. CONTINENTAL ABRASION. If we are to regard the Lakes as a grand geological triturating apparatus, converting its loose and shore rocks into a pulverulent state, it may be anticipated that their action on the configuration of the shores will be very considerable in the course of long periods. What is lost in this process in one place, from their rock area, is found to augment the quantity of alluvial soil in another; which, in time, renders the whole area suitable for agriculture. Thus the plough gradually, but surely, follows the tempest and the hurricane; while the absolute indestructibility of matter is man's guarantee under every change.

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"8. INTEGRITY OF MATTER. The absolute quantity and cubical area of material matter (!) of these immense areas is still the same. The elements of which they are composed are seen to be indestructible. No change of combination or position is seen to take from, or add to, the material aggregate. If physical matter (!) under the force of tempests, could be destroyed, as well as change its forms, there would result an annihilation of a part or molecule of the original accretion of elements. Wild as their rage sometimes is, casting vessels