CURRENT LITERATURE.
GIFT-BOOKS.
The Red Mountain of Alaska. By Willis Boyd Allen. (S. W. Partridge and Co.)—Treasures of gold, whether coined or in nugget and ore, are familiar "properties " of the writer of fiction ; but a mountain of cinnabar is new. " Its chemical symbol " is,
we hear, " H G No ore is so easily decomposed it [decomposition, we suppose] is effected by direst exposure to the oxidising flame of a furnace," &c. After this little dose of science, wo are treated to an abundance of adventure. Alaska Indians are almost as novel as cinnabar ; but they are not materially different from their fellows on the North American Continent, except, indeed, in being less bloodthirsty. The story of the travels and explorations of Mr. Dutton and his family— divided, by-the-way, into two portions, and so giving double entertainment—is quite up to the average of this kind of litera- ture ; and the novelty that has been mentioned gives it a decided advantage.
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