_On the South African Frontier_[H] is a narrative of the experiences and observations of the author, Mr. _William Harvey Brown_, partly as naturalist of the United States Government Eclipse-observing Expedition of 1889 to the west coast of Africa, and partly as a resident in various occupations for seven years in Rhodesia. The principal object in composing it was to give American readers a clearer idea of English operations in conquest and colonization on the South African frontier than it is possible to glean from current fragmentary accounts. The author served his apprenticeship at natural history collecting under Prof. L. L. Dyche, of the University of Kansas, and Mr. W. T. Hornady, of the New York Zoölogical Gardens, and was recommended by Mr. Hornady to the Government for the Eclipse Expedition. He sailed first to Freetown, then to St. Paul de Loanda, where he spent a few weeks collecting, establishing his headquarters at Bishop Taylor's American Methodist Self-supporting Mission. Thence, after a short attack of African fever, he proceeded to Cape Town, where he was attacked by the other sort of African fever--"an irresistible longing to penetrate the Dark Continent for purposes of exploration and of observing both man and Nature." He made the journey overland to Mafeting and to the Mashona country, in the region of which he spent seven years as "game-hunter, gold-seeker, landowner, citizen, and soldier," observing and participating in the settlement and early development of the new state of Rhodesia. The larger part of the book is devoted to his adventures and observations, "travel, collecting, hunting, prospecting, farming, scouting, fighting," and seeing pioneer life. Two chapters are devoted to ethnology. The race problems which arise during the stage of transition from barbarism, the agricultural and mineral resources of Rhodesia, and its prospects and possibilities, are discussed. [Footnote H: On the South African Frontier. The Adventures and Observations of an American in Mashonaland and Matabeleland. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 430, with map. Price, $3.]