kes out from these his
list of volumes wanted, which are at once supplied, and he falls to work
on his long, but to him interesting job.

A reader who has seen in the library or elsewhere a book he would much
like to own, but cannot find a copy in town, wants to know what it will
cost: you turn to your American or foreign catalogue, covering the year
of publication, and give him not only the price, but the publisher's name
from whom he can order it, and he goes on his way rejoicing.

An artist engaged upon a painting in which he wishes to introduce a deer,
or a group of rabbits, or an American eagle, or a peacock, asks for an
accurate picture of the bird or animal wanted. You put before him J. S.
Kingsley's Riverside Natural History, in six volumes, and his desire is
satisfied.

In dealing with books of reference, there will often be found very
important discrepancies of statement, different works giving different
dates, for example, for the same event in history or biography.

Next to a bible and a dictionary of language, there is no book, perhaps,
more common than a biographical dictionary. Our interest in our
fellow-men is perennial; and we seek to know not only their
characteristics, and the distinguishing events of their lives, but also
the time of their birth into the world and their exit from it. This is a
species of statistics upon which one naturally expects certainty, since
no person eminent enough to be recorded at all is likely to have the
epoch of his death, at least, unremarked. Yet the seeker after exact
information in the biographical dictionaries will find, if he extends his
quest among various authorities, that he is afloat on a sea of
uncertainties. Not only can he not find out the date of decease of some
famous navigators, like Sir John Franklin and La Perouse, who sailed into
unexplored regions of the globe, and were never heard of more, but the
men who died at home, in the midst of friends and families, are
frequently recorded as deceased at dates so discrepant that no ingenuity
can reconcile them.

In Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, Sir Henry Havelock was said to have died
November 25th, 1857, while Maunder's Treasury of Biography gives November
21st, the London Almanac, November 27th, and the Life of Havelock, by his
brother-in-law, November 24th. Here are four distinct dates of death
given, by authorities apparently equally accredited, to a celebrated
general, who died within forty years of ou