There exists, as one characteristic of the nineteenth century, an earnest desire on the part of many to recall, and, in mind, to live over the days and years that are past; and many there are who occupy more or less of their time in collecting the scattered relics of bygone days—in searching among the faded records of departed years, to eagerly catch the golden sands of facts which cling to legendary tales, and to interpret the hieroglyphics which the footsteps of time have well-nigh worn away. To this fact many a museum can bear ample testimony. The antiquarian enjoys intense satisfaction in his labors of research, and when he is rewarded by the discovery of something new, he is but stimulated to renewed exertion. In the old world rich fields have been, and are now being explored; and in the new laborers are not wanting. Since the days when man first trod the virgin soil of this globe, he has ever been accustomed to preserve the more important events of his life, and, by tradition, to hand them down to his children’s children; and likewise has it been with communities and nations. Every people who are known to have occupied a place upon the earth, have left some indication of their origin, and the part they played in the world’s great drama. In recent days, facts pertaining to nations and particular individuals are preserved in all their amplitude, through the agency of the Press. But in former centuries, only a few symbols, perhaps rudely cut in solid stone, commemorated events of the most important kind. The historians of Eastern nations have had to look far back into the misty past, to learn the facts of their birth and infant days; while the dark days of barbarism hang as a thick veil to obstruct the view. The middle ages, like a destructive flood, swept away, to a great extent, the records previously in existence. But out of the _debris_ has been exhumed many a precious relic; and the stone and the marble thus obtained, have supplied valuable material on which to base trustworthy history. In recording the events which belong to the Western world—this broad American continent—the historian has far less of toil and research to undergo. It is true the native Indian, who once proudly ruled the vast extent of the new world, has a history yet undeveloped. An impenetrable cloud obscures the facts appertaining to his advent upon this continent. The nature of his origin is buried in the ocean of pre-historic time. But in reference to the occupation of America by Europeans, the subjugation and gradual extermination of the Indian, the life of the pioneer, the struggles for political independence, the rapid growth and development of nations; all these results, embraced within the space of a few centuries, are freely accessible to the American historian.