With thus much--none too complete, but all that I have in hand--concerning Pike's private life, we return to his public career. The unnumbered extant notices to which the fame that he acquired gave rise are mainly and most naturally devoted to the consideration of the Mississippian, Arkansan, and Mexican exploits which form the matter of the present volumes, but which need not occupy the present biographer, as they speak for themselves. These cover the dates of 1805-6-7; and before taking up Pike's life in 1808, we may next consider the bibliography of the books to which his expeditions gave rise. The earliest one of these, forerunner of the regular edition of 1810, is entitled: _An Account | of a | Voyage | up the Mississippi River, from St. | Louis to its source; | made under the orders of the War De- | partment, by Lieut. Pike, of the Uni- | ted States Army, in the Years 1805 and | 1806. Compiled from Mr. Pike's Jour- | nal. |_ Pamphlet, 8vo., pp. 1-68, no date, no author, no editor, no publisher, no printer, no place of publication; title, verso blank, pp. 1, 2; text, pp. 3-67, with colophon ("Finis."); p. 68 being "Extract of a letter from N. Boilvin [Nicholas Boivin] Indian agent, | to the Secretary of War, dated St. Louis, | Oct, 6, 1806. |" This is an extremely rare tract. I have handled two copies, one of which I own, title page gone; the other being a perfect example in the Library of Congress at Washington. There is a third in the Ridgway Library of Philadelphia; and Sabin's Bibl. Amer. cites a fourth, in the library of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, Mass. These are all that I know of, though of course others exist. The authorship and circumstances of publication remain unknown, to me at least. Sabin gives the date 1807; this is probably correct, certainly true within a year, but questionable. I adopt it, in view of its probability, and in the absence of conclusive evidence against it, though Whiting says 1808. But early in 1808 Pike was already arranging for the publication of his own book, which appeared in 1810. Pike does not even allude to this publication, either in his own book, or in any of the manuscripts I have seen in which the latter is mentioned. On consultation with Mr. A. R. Spofford over the general aspect and "make-up," no definite conclusion could be reached by that exceptionally well-versed librarian. It is supposed by some, not without plausibility, to have been a government publication; but Mr. Spofford's ignorance of the fact, if it be such, is against this supposition; for a publication which he cannot recognize on sight as having been issued in Washington is unlikely. The tract looks as if it formed a part of something else; witness the peculiar set of the title page, the conclusion of the Pike matter on p. 67, and the appearance on p. 68 of the Boivin letter, having no obvious connection with the rest.