MEMOIRS.
The Days of a Man. By David Starr Jordan. 2 vols. (Yonkers, New York : World Publishing Co. $15.)
The publication of colossal memoirs is an indulgence which it is dangerous to encourage. True, they may contain in- valuable material for the historian ; but they are also a most intractable millstone round his neck. He can neither read them nor afford to neglect them. One might almost suggest that a special department of the Public Record Office be established, to produce a sort of monthly index, a comparative and cross-referenced record of current publications, as a sign- post to the future historian of the twentieth century. Without it he will be most undoubtedly bogged—which preamble is to suggest, that while Professor Jordan's memoirs are very far indeed from being valueless,• the careful reading of them and their like would be a whole-time occupation for ten or twenty men at least. It has been the author's aim to set down everything—everything, at least, which does not redound to anyone's discredit. He gives full details, with photographs, of his family, his wives, their families, his children ; everyone he has met or served on a committee with, their families, wives, and children ; innumerable quotatiobs of no great appositeness or intrinsic merit ; all his own occasional verse, whether light or earnest ; an appendix of the stories he told his children ; innumerable travel-details ; details of local politics of the last century ; details, in fact, of anything under the sun which in any way remotely affected him. So much for the millstone. But the interest of the book lies first and foremost in its commentary on the development of the United States, especially the Western States,: during the last fifty years. Professor Jordan was in at the birth of everything—California's first telephone, first motor-car, first University. He can fairly claim to be one of the fathers of his country. He has seen villages spring into cities, districts of half-explored wilderness turned into industrial suburbs ; moreover, in his pursuit of natural history he has visited almost every country, from Japan to Bulgaria, Samoa to Alaska ; had rare fishes and uninhabited islands named in his honour ; published works ranging from the Pathology of Hoof-rot to Eric's Book of Beasts. In short, he has lived a singularly full and energetic life covering a singularly interest- ing period of his country's history ; and it is surely pardonable if he tempers the dignity of old age with a certain prolixity..
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