Graphic Sketches of the West. By Henry B. Kent. (Brentano.)—
This is a collection of letters to some New York newspapers, republished, as the writer says in the preface, with the idea that they may form a general guide to the countries passed through. Some parts of these, notably the" Petrified Forest," some hundred miles north of San Francisco, are less known to either travellers or readers than the famous Yosemite Valley, with its big trees, has now become ; and if the English in which the descriptions are written is intelligible on the other side of the Atlantic, the hook may serve its purpose there. Here, such words as "cymophanous," " ernbescent," " gram," are deterrent to readers, and it does not add to our enjoyment of a book when a writer calls lips " labials," and oranges " pendants of saporific gold ; " nor are we enlightened, as we might wish to be, about the climate of Southern California, when the writer, after the intelligible remark that "the winters of Southern California are, without question, delightfully mild, and this seems to be its distinctive merit," proceeds thus : " Still, there are others who view the subject in a different light, refusing to recalcitrate against the exceeding mildness of the warmer months. This is the case with some per- manent residents, who accept, in much the same spirit, the match- less glory of the flowery winter, and what the writer viewed as the sardonic and vituperable 'mildness' of recreant summer." Still, when the writer forgets his polysyllables, he does give infor- mation of an interesting kind, and the illustrations, which are very numerous—more than two hundred and fifty in a book of two hundred and fifty-four pages—are both good and well chosen, though, as is often the case in the attempt to depict the effects of
brilliant sunshine, indefiniteness of outline is occasionally carried too far.
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