affords room for drawings of nature and an analysis of the most delicate traits of human character; and Detmold is delightful. LIFE OF COLONEL AARON BURR, VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, With Portrait, autograph and hitherto unpublished letters; also sketches of his father, etc. By CHARLES BURR TODD. Reprinted from the author's history of the Burr family. 8vo, pp. 139. Appendix, pp. 8. S. W. Green, New York, 1879. A better, or more succinct account of Burr, his father, and his daughter Theodosia, could hardly be found than this brief sketch. His military, political, and professional career are each treated in turn. Of course the pamphlet is a defence of the man who for years was in the front rank of observation, but it is modestly and discreetly written. NOTES ON THE MANUFACTURE OF POTTERY AMONG SAVAGE RACES. By Lt. FRED. HARTT, late Chief of the Geological Commission of Brazil. From the American Naturalists for February, 1879. pp. 78-93. According to the writer the use of pottery is unknown to many savage people; as for instance, the Esquimaux, the Northern Indians of North America. Among the Algonkin tribes of Canada and the northeastern United States, cooking was often in vessels of bark. The various systems of clay baking or pottery are here intelligently described, and the pamphlet is an excellent hand-book for the antiquary engaged in this line of research. CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF BATTLES AND ENGAGEMENTS OF THE WESTERN ARMIES OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES, INCLUDING SUMMARY OF LIEUT.-GEN. JOSEPH WHEELER'S CAVALRY ENGAGEMENTS. By EDWIN L. DRAKE, Lieut.-Col., C. S. A. 8vo, pp. 99. TAVEL, EASTMAN & HOWell, Nashville, 1879. In a brief preface Dr. Drake, who is known as the editor of the Annals of the army of Tennessee, expresses the difficulty of reaching any true statement of losses, owing to the want of any thing like full systematic printed records from the Confederate States. He requests specific information, in tabular form if convenient, of every affair in the west. A STORY OR TWO FROM AN OLD DUTCH TOWN. By ROBERT LOWELL. 16m0, pp. 322. ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston, 1878. The scene of this simple story is laid in the town of Westervliet, which may mean Schenectady or any other of the old Dutch settle ments of the State of New York where the names of Van Zandt, Schermerhorn, Bleeker, Van Cortlandt, and others are still to be found in abundance, but not in the numbers that they rative begins. The quiet drowsiness of the period were fifty years ago, when the action of the nar seems to have thoroughly permeated the author, and subdued his hand to that it worked in. THE PAST AND THE PRESENT. NARRAGANSETT SEA AND SHORE. An illustrated guide to Providence, Newport, Narragansett Pier, Block Island, Watch Hill, Rocky Point, Silver Spring and all the famous sea-side resorts of Rhode Island. With a Map of Narragansett Bay. By FREDERIC DENISON. 8vo, pp. 88. J. A. & R. A. REID, Providence, 1879. manifold pleasures which Narragansett supplies The summer tourist who would enjoy the to the outer and inner man, will find excellent advice in this cheap and convenient hand-book, which is appropriately entitled, Picturesque Narragansett Sea and Shore. It abounds in illustrations, and records the romance as well as the history of the location. ON CHAMPLAIN'S ASTROLABE, LOST ON THE 7TH JUNE, 1613, AND FOUND IN AUGUST, 1867. Considered in solution of an obscurity in his Journal of his first voyage up the Ottawa, and the great antiquity of astrolabes and origin of their graduation. By A. J. RUSSELL. 8vo, pp. 24. DAWSON BROS, Montreal, 1879. In the March number of the Magazine (III., 179), an account was given by Mr. O. H. Marshall of Buffalo, of the astrolabe found at Ross Renfrew County, Ontario, Canada, in the summer of 1867, and accompanying it a view of the instrument, which it is supposed was lost by Champlain in 1613. In this treatise the same subject is discussed and the same conclusions arrived at. It contains also a photographic picture of the astrolabe, and a map showing Champlain's route through Muskrat Province in the year named. The history of astrolabes, as instruments of science, is valuable. MAGAZINE OF AMERICAN HISTORY VOL. III NOVEMBER 1879 No. 11 BRODHEAD'S EXPEDITION AGAINST THE INDIANS OF THE UPPER ALLEGHENY A 1779 CENTURY has elapsed since the council fire of the Six Nations was extinguished, and their Long House destroyed. The firmness and tact of this little confederacy, enabled it for more than an hundred years, to maintain its ancient seats along the rivers and lakes of central New York against powerful neighbors. With the French close on one side, and the English upon the other, a less vigorous people would have been crushed as between two mill stones. Although these Indians were of a barbarous race, and few in numbers, their story will not be soon forgotten. Their military enterprise and conquests justly gained for them the title of "Romans of the West," and their practical wisdom enabled them to frame a perfect Representative Federal Republic, which a trial during a period longer than the existence of our own Republic, has proved to have been as efficient in practice as it was perfect in theory; an achievement that had long baffled the skill of enlightened statesmen, and which is alone sufficient to render the name of the Iroquois illustrious. This rare piece of Indian workmanship affords remarkable evidence of their political sagacity, and presents the paradox, that unlettered men, by simple methods, can effect results that cultivated minds accomplish only after great effort. These achievements, the eloquence of their orators, and the prominent part they filled in the early history of this country, will prevent the name of this people from soon fading into oblivion. At the commencement of the revolution, the Six Nations held friendly relations with all their white neighbors, whether adherents to Congress or the Crown. But the wanton massacre of Logan's family, and other enormities committed by the whites during Cresaps' war, had weakened their friendship for the colonies. The authority that Colonel Guy and Sir John Johnson, and Colonel Daniel Claus, who succeeded to the power that Sir William Johnson possessed with the Indians, and the influence of Colonel John Butler and his son Walter, influential citizens of the Mohawk Valley, were exerted to attach the Confederacy to the King. Joseph Brant and his sister Molly, strived also to embitter the Mohawks against the colonies. On the other hand, the patriots of Tryon County, the Rev. Samuel Kirkland and the Oneida Chief, Shenandoah, endeavored to persuade the Indians to pursue a neutral policy. The Indians for some time hesitated. Councils were held with them by patriots and by loyalists, with the result that the Oneidas, a large portion of the Tuscaroras, a portion of the Onondagas, and a few of the Mohawks, favored the Americans. But the greater number, of whom the Senecas and Mohawks were foremost, under the lead of Brant and the Seneca chiefs, became their bitter and active foes. The first hostilities of which we learn, were committed in May, 1776, by Brant and the Mohawks, at the Battle of the Cedars, which occurred about forty miles above Montreal, on the River St. Lawrence. The hostile Indians next joined the forces of St. Leger, participated in the seige of Fort Stanwix, and in the desperate battle of Oriskany. Then followed the massacre of Wyoming, and raids into the Mohawk Valley; and finally, November, 1778, occurred the burning and massacre of Cherry Valley. The barbarities committed in these bloody forays have been in some instances exaggerated. Too much, perhaps, has been charged upon the Indians, and too little upon the Tories and refugees who accompanied them. The inhabitants on the border, however, suffered so greatly from these incursions, that the States became aroused to the necessity of waging a more decisive war on the frontier, and Congress, on the 25th of February, 1779, by a resolution, directed Washington to take the most effective measures to protect the settlers and chastise the Indians. Accordingly he planned two expeditions; one to proceed from the east, penetrate into the Seneca country, and devastate the fields of the Indians, destroy their villages, and drive their inhabitants into the woods; the other to advance up the Allegheny River, and in like manner destroy the Indian towns and fields there, and ultimately join the expedition from the east in a combined attack upon Fort Ni agara. The expedition from the east moved in two divisions. One under the immediate command of General Sullivan, left Wyoming, ascended the Susquehanna, and arrived at Tioga, August 11th, 1779. The other, under General James Clinton, marched from Canajoharie on the |