Betwixt the Lenni-Lenape and Mengwe there raged continual wars, in which the former nation generally came off victorious. At length, however, the several tribes of the Mengwe united into a confederacy known as that of the Five Nations; and, being supplied with fire-arms by the Dutch, succeeded in subduing the Delawares, and forcing them to assume the character of WOMEN. This singular ceremony was performed at Albany, in the presence of the Dutch, in 1617. From that time the Iroquois have been the dominant nation. A work recording their history, explaining their governmental polity, and discussing their manners and customs would throw great light on the whole Indian race, and prove invaluable to the student; and it is as one of a series, intended to carry out such an idea, that the present volume has been published. The author has divided his subject into four periods: the first of which will contain the history of the Six Nations, up to the arrival of Sir William Johnson—the second will be occupied by the life and times of that remarkable individual—the third carries on the history through the life of Brandt—and the fourth, the present work, brings the subject up to the sale of the last Seneca lands in 1838. Only the last two eras of this history have as yet seen the light. The life of Red Jacket is the least important portion of this subject, affording little more than a narrative of treaties for the sale of lands, with an occasional glimpse at the polity of the Six Nations, and the Senecas in particular. The period is not one calculated to display the powers which the early history and origin of the Six Nations might call forth. Industry and research are nearly all that is required. Both of these qualities Colonel Stone has evinced. There is little that is positively new in the book, but many doubtful questions have been settled, and a clearer insight given into the Indian character and customs than we had been led to expect. As an instance of the latter, we notice the fact mentioned of the women and war-chiefs in the Canandaigua council, who took the business of the treaty out of the sachems’ hands, asserting that the latter had no right to refuse the sale of lands, against the opinion of the women and braves. We are also made more fully acquainted, in this volume, with the subjection, in general, of the military to the civil power among the Indians. Perhaps the style is objectionable in one or two particulars, and there are too many speeches given “in extenso;” while events of little importance sometimes occupy as much space as those of greater moment, and tend to give an occasional prolixity to the work, which would be well worth the author’s revision when a second edition comes to be demanded. The anecdotes which intersperse the volume are highly characteristic. On the whole, in collecting and arranging so many undigested facts, and in preserving from oblivion the oral traditions of the actors in the scenes he