Father Kino's Lost History, its Discovery and its Value, by Professor H. E. Bolton, is reprinted for private circulation from the papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. VI.

The Bureau of Insular Affairs of the War Department has published a compilation of the acts of Congress, treaties, proclamations, decisions of the Supreme Court, and opinions of the Attorney-General relating to non-contiguous territory, 1909-1911.

The American Occupation of the Philippines, 1898-1912, by James H. Blount (Putnam's Sons) is a personal narrative as well as an historical study, the author having served in the islands as officer of United States volunteers and later as district judge.

We have just received volumes XIV. and XV. (1910, 1911) of the Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society. Among their contents we notice especially: the Fisheries of British North America and United States Fishermen, by Wallace Graham, judge of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia; Memoir of Governor John Parr, by James S. Macdonald; and Halifax and the Capture of St. Pierre in 1793, by T. Watson Smith in vol. XIV.; and in vol. XV.: Life of Alexander Stewart, C. B., by C. J. Townshend; Records of Chignecto, by W. C. Milner; and a list of the papers read before the society since 1878.

Under the editorship of Dr. Arthur Doughty and Col. William Wood two volumes of some historical interest, The King's Book of Quebec, have been issued by the Mortimer Company of Ottawa, the objects of the volumes being to stir public opinion to care for the battlefields of Quebec and to "unite more closely Canadians of French and of British descent".

Bulletin no. 4 of the Departments of Political and Economic Science in Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, is Sir Charles Bagot: an Incident in Canadian Parliamentary History, by J. L. Morrison. Mr. Morrison is inclined to rank Bagot, whose work in Canada scarcely extended through a single year from the spring of 1842, as "one of the four nineteenth century Englishmen who best served Canada in politics before the Confederation".

The thirteenth annual meeting of the Ontario Historical Society was held at Napanee, Ontario, on June 5-7. About one hundred delegates were present and the public interest in the meetings was very great. Perhaps the most important action taken was the appointment of a committee to report to the council on plans for the erection of a building for the society in Toronto. The historical papers were devoted mainly to various phases of the War of 1812. The officers elected were: president, John Dearness; first vice-president, Clarence M. Warner; second vice-president, Sir Edmund Walker; treasurer, Clarkson W. James; and members of the council, John S. Carstairs, Alexander Fraser, Andrew F. Hunter, W. L. Grant, and W. S. Wallace.

The Bulletin of the New York Public Library continues in the June and July issues the list of works relating to the West Indies (parts V. and VI.).

The Boletin del Archivo Nacional (Havana) for May-June contains, in the section devoted to documents, the Denuncia del Obispo de la Habana, contra los Presbíteros Cubanos Dr. Ricardo Arteaga, Emilio de los Santos Fuentes, Miguel Santos, Manuel de Jesús Doval, Francisco de P. Barnada, y Pedro Almanza, por hacer Propaganda Separatista. desde el Púlpito, y Deportación de los cuatro primeros. Catalogues of the archives are continued by installments of the Indice de Protocolos de las Escribanias de la Isla de Cuba, 1842-1890, and the Indice de las Documentos sobre Realengos, 1748-1939.

A little brochure by Charles Trébos recounts the share of Normandy in the colonization of the French Antilles (Paris, Challamel).

Bolivar et l'Emancipation des Colonies Espagnoles des Origines à 1815 comes from the pen of Jules Mancini and the press of Perrin (Paris, 1912, pp. 610). Robert Levillier has written Les Origines Argentines for the Bibliothèque Charpentier.

Friedrich Weber's Beiträge zur Charakteristik der Aelteren Geschichtsschreiber über Spanisch-Amerika (AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW, XVII. 189) is reviewed in the Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen (1912, 7). The review presents serious criticisms of the work and suggests numerous corrections and insertions, which make it a valuable supplement to the book.

no.

A new volume in Messrs. Scribner's South American series is Venezuela, by Leonard V. Dalton.

Two volumes on the history of Brazil have just appeared. Ensaios de Historia Diplomatica do Brasil no Régimen Republicano, by A. G. de Arango Jorge (Rio de Janeiro, Silva, 1912) is devoted to the period from 1889 to 1902, containing chapters on the recognition of the republic, the provincial government, the military presidencies, and the presidencies of Moraes and Salles, respectively; all these deal primarily with foreign relations. De Monroe a Rio-Branco, by Helio Lobo (Rio de Janeiro, Imprensa Nacional), deals with the following "Paginas de Diplomacia Americana": Entre George Canning e James Monroe; a Assembléa do Isthmo; a Primeira Conferencia de Lima; a Assembléa de Buenos Aires; Tentativas de uma Codificação; and a America Latina e a Diplomacia do Imperio.

Noteworthy articles in periodicals: John Finley, The French in the Heart of America, I. (Scribner's Magazine, September); J. J. Jusserand, Rochambeau in America, I. (Harvard Graduate's Magazine, September); H. C. Lodge, The Constitution and its Makers (North American Review, July); Rayner W. Kelsey, The Originator of the Federal Idea

(The Nation, June 6); L. Didier, Le Citoyen Genet, I. (Revue des Questions Historiques, July); A. B. Coover, Ohio Banking Institutions, 1803-1866 (Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, April-July); D. J. Ryan, Ohio in the Mexican War (ibid.); Farrar Newberry, The Nashville Convention and Southern Sentiment of 1850 (South Atlantic Quarterly, July); Gaillard Hunt, The History of the Department of State, IX. (American Journal of International Law, July); Margaret Van Horn Dwight, A Trip to Ohio in 1810 [diary], (Atlantic, September); Letters of Samuel F. B. Morse (North American Review, June, July); G. A. King, The French Spoliation Claims (American Journal of International Law, April, July); T. W. Page, The Distribution of Immigrants in the United States from 1870 (Journal of Political Economy, July); Morris Schaff, The Sunset of the Confederacy: a History (Atlantic, July-September); Helen Nicolay, Characteristic Anecdotes of Lincoln (Century, September); Admiral George Dewey, Autobiography (Hearst's Magazine, July); H. C. Lodge, Some Early Memories, I. (Scribner's, September); P. Groussac, Un Français Vice-Roi de la Plate: Jacques de Liniers, Comte de Buenos-Ayres (Revue des Deux-Mondes, May 1).

I

The

American Historical Review

CHANGES OF CLIMATE AND HISTORY

T is not by accident that the most universal subject of conversation is the weather. The New Englander says hard things of the east wind, the Chinese patiently wonders when the first rains will fall in the spring and start the growth of the seed that he has planted, and the Arab who meets a stranger inquires where rain has fallen. So, too, the Egyptian talks of the rise of the Nile, and probably the Eskimo converses with his friends about the terrible heat when the thermometer rises above freezing for several days. All these things are merely the expression of the fact that among the phenomena of nature none affect mankind so directly and vitally as those which pertain to climate. If man is so deeply influenced by the climatic conditions which now prevail, it is manifest that any changes of climate which have taken place in the past or may take place in the future are of the highest importance. The realization of this fact has led historians, geographers, and others to discuss the question of changes of climate ever since the days of the Greeks. Plato and other writers say that formerly the climate of Greece was moister and the forests more abundant than in their day. Aristotle declares that the flood of Deukalion was due to a periodical cycle in atmospheric phenomena. He states that just as winter returns regularly each year, so great cold and heavy precipitation return in the course of long periods. In other words he announces the theory of pulsatory changes of climate. For two thousand years that theory lay in abeyance. Many people discussed the possibility of a gradual drying up of the earth, a gradual cooling off, or a gradual increase in warmth, but all the discussions were based on the idea of slow and comparatively regular changes. It was left to the present writer to propose the theory of pulsatory changes once more, quite uncon

AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XVIII.-15. (213)

scious that in so doing he was following in the steps of the Greeks.1

The modern historian realizes the importance of physical factors, especially of climate, in influencing some of the great facts of history, but he does not usually admit more than a slow and general effect as opposed to the rapid and marked effects which the adoption of the theory of pulsatory changes would naturally demand. This attitude is well illustrated in a recent article in the Journal of Geography, by Professor A. T. Olmstead of the University of Missouri. Speaking of the relation of climate to the people of a country, he says:

It has long been recognized that it has important effects upon the inhabitants, but also that the most important effects result only when those inhabitants have long occupied the country. Egypt affords an excellent example of the value of climatic study in this connection and also of its dangers if not used in the light of history. Here we have a hot, dry climate where the main dependence for the crops is not on the rains but on the rise of the Nile. This rise, regular as the seasons, the comparatively small change in temperature among the seasons themselves, the almost complete absence of rainfall, taken in connection with the fertility of the soil and the small number of staple crops, has produced a condition of affairs in which all that is demanded is a steady carrying out of a routine which never changes and requires rather brawn than brain. This we find admirably reflected in the character of the peasantry, now, as in antiquity, interested only in the securing of enough food to live and to marry upon. But this did not seriously modify the character of the ruling class for, from pre-dynastic times, they have always been foreigners. Accordingly, their character has always been that formed in other countries. Only one effect should be noted. Just because they did not adjust themselves to the climate, they became enervated and finally were killed off. In other words, the climate had only a negative effect on the men who have made Egyptian culture worthy of our study. And, since history means evolution, the unchanging peasantry, who show most strikingly the effect of climate, need be mentioned once only by the historian, after which their existence may be assumed for the further historical relation.

If, for the moment, it be granted that all the important contributions of Egypt to human history have been due to invaders, and that the peasantry have from time immemorial preserved exactly the same character, the historian and the geographer agree just as

1 The first full statement of the theory appeared in The Pulse of Asia (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1907). It has since been amplified in Palestine and its Transformation (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911), and in several magazine articles, especially "The Burial of Olympia", Geographical Journal, XXXVI. 657-686 (1910), and “ Physical Environment as a Factor in the Present Condition of Turkey", Journal of Race Development, I. 460–481 (1910–1911). A cognate subject is treated in an article entitled " Geographical Environment and Japanese Character", Journal of Race Development, II. 256-281 (1911-1912).

A. T. Olmstead, “Climate and History ", Journal of Geography, X. 163–168 (1912).