uthor, "for the purpose of preservation, a mass of papers not
absolutely necessary to the elucidation of the history contained in the
body of the work. Most of them consist of original papers and letters
never before published, and which are now, for the first time, placed in
an accessible and permanent form." To compare small things with great,
these documents are made just about as "accessible" as are the State
papers to which Carlyle devotes so much paper and bile in his book on
Oliver Cromwell.

In short, this book contains much valuable information, which is very
hard to extract, and when extracted is not germane to the history of the
city of Buffalo.

Some information about Buffalo's history was found in a pamphlet on the
Manufacturing Interests of the City of Buffalo, published in 1866. In it
were historical sketches, covering about twenty-five pages,--verbose,
with little meat, written in the flowery style so dear to the heart of
the American editor or "Honorable" when extolling the virtues of his
constituency. Turner's History of the Holland Purchase, published in
1849, and containing six hundred and sixty-six pages, would have been
more useful, had it not been composed for the greater part of the
biographies of insignificant pioneers, and had not the rest related in
the main to the early history of the section. A book promising much on
the outside was Hotchkin's History of Western New York. An examination
of the title-page, however, dampened our expectations, for there was
added the rest of the title, namely, "And of the Rise, Progress, and
Present State of the Presbyterian Church." The book proved indeed a
delusion and a snare, for of its six hundred pages more than nine tenths
pertained to church affairs,--were part and parcel of the cahiers of the
clergy. As for the magazine articles on Buffalo, they are few and, from
the historical point of view, insignificant.

Of far more interest than the histories of either Cleveland or Buffalo,
though perhaps no more important, is that of their nearest common
neighbor of equal rank,--Pittsburgh. In very many respects this is one
of the most interesting cities in the Union, which is mostly due to the
fact that it has such a remarkable location, and that its topography is
picturesquely unique. Here we have the strange combination of the
blackest, smuttiest, dirtiest hole in the United States,--at night, as
Parton said: "All hell with the lid taken off,"--with surround