f a
continuous discussion, remarkable alike for an air at least of breadth
and profundity, careful and comprehensive knowledge, and for concise and
often eloquent expression. The introduction is followed by chapters on
Iceland, Greenland, and the various expeditions to the polar regions of
the north, treating those topics both historically and ethnographically,
and with a clear presentation of every interesting and important fact.
Next follows a general survey of the continent north of the fiftieth,
degree of latitude, its rivers, lakes, forests, animals, men, and
commerce, including an account of the various Indian tribes, and the
trading companies dealing with them. The trading posts of the Hudson's
Bay Company, Lord Selkirk's colony on Red River, Labrador, Newfoundland,
the British Possessions on the West coast, Russian America, are
successively treated. Next the Indians in Canada and the United States
are considered at length, in respect of their history, traditions,
languages, monuments, customs, the influence of the whites upon them,
and their probable destiny. In this connection we notice that Dr. Andree
frequently cites Gallatin, Schoolcraft, Squier, and other American
writers. The remainder of the first volume will treat of the United
States, their political history and organization, their soil, climate,
people, &c., not failing to give whatever information may be useful to
the European settler looking for a new home, as well as to the _savan_
looking for light upon ethnographic and social problems.

From this general outline the scope of the book may be inferred, but our
readers will permit us to refer to one or two points which are dwelt
upon in the introduction. Dr. Andree contends with the earnestness of a
determined partisan for the originality of the vegetable and animal
creations, as well as of the human race upon this continent, rejecting
entirely the theory that either was transplanted from the eastern
hemisphere. The unity of the human family, he maintains with a class of
writers distinguishable chiefly for a sleepless activity in assailing
the authority of the Christian religion, does not require the assumption
of numerical identity of origin, but rather the contrary. "It is not
necessary," he says, "to assume the arithmetical _oneness_ of mankind,
and the derivation of all from a single pair, thus arbitrarily confining
and limiting the creative power of the Highest Being;" and this position
he proce