on of Alabama
and Mississippi by the Spaniards for thirty years; and the occupation of
these states by the Americans from 1800 until 1820. One whole chapter is
taken up with an interesting account of the arrest of Aaron Burr in
Alabama in 1807; and the exciting controversies between Georgia, the
Federal Government, Spain, and the Creek Indians, are treated at length.
The work will be illustrated by really valuable engravings, after
original drawings made by a French traveller in 1564.

* * * * *

Mrs. Farnham, author of _Prairie-Land_, (a very clever book published
three or four years ago by the Harpers), and widow of the late Mr.
Farnham who wrote a book of travels in Oregon and other parts of the
Pacific country, is now living in a sort of paradise, about seventy
miles south of San Francisco. In a published letter she gives the
following description of her farm:

"It is very heavily timbered and watered with clear living
streams running through valleys of the most fertile soil, on
which delicious vegetables grow ten months of the year. The
region is especially famed for potatoes, which become almost a
fruit here. The farm I live on is charmingly situated about a
mile from the old Mission, and two from the beach, on which a
tremendous surf breaks and thunders day and night. From my
house I look over the coast-table and range of mountains, the
hills of Monterey, the bay, and a near landscape, exquisitely
diversified by plain and wood, hill and valley, and almost
every shade that herbage and foliage, in a country without
frost, can show. The rainy season is about a month old, and the
earth as green as it is at home in June. Another month will
pile it with clover, and less than another variegate it with an
inconceivable variety of the most exquisite flowers--for this
is the land of flowers as well as of gold. Our prairies are
quite insignificant in their floral shows, compared to it. The
country and climate are faultless--except in the lack of
showers through the dry months. Nearly every thing one can
desire may be grown upon one's own farm here."

* * * * *

Mr. Charles Gayarre, a gentleman distinguished in the affairs of
Louisiana, in which state he has held some important offices, has just
published in a handsome octavo, _Louisiana, its Colonial History