THE WORKS OF JAMES BUCHANAN, COMPRISING HIS SPEECHES, STATE PAPERS AND PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. Collected and edited by PROF. JOHN BASSETT MOORE. Volumes V and VI, 1841–1844, 1844–1846. President Buchanan was an Irishman, and Professor Moore has undertaken a most meritorious work in bringing forth the speeches, state papers and private correspondence of this great American citizen. The volume now issued is the fifth, and covers part of the period that Mr. Buchanan was in the United States Senate, where his continued membership of the Committee on Foreign Relations and Committee on Manufactures brought him into close contact with many of the most pressing questions of the time. The great issues covered by these volumes were those of the northeastern and northwestern boundaries and the annexation of Texas. In 1844 Buchanan was a presidential possibility, and his letters, though few in number, show him willing to take, but unwilling to seek, this high office. An excellent review of these volumes has recently been made by Professor William MacDonald of Brown University, Providence, R. I., a member of the Executive Committee of the American Historical Association. [Illustration: CHAUNCEY OLCOTT. Of New York City, the Famous Actor. A Life Member of the Society. ] OLD TIMES ON THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI: THE RECOLLECTIONS OF A STEAMBOAT PILOT FROM 1854 TO 1863. BY GEORGE BYRON MERRICK. The author’s family were whalers from Nantucket. Mr. Merrick is a good story-teller, and his book abounds with tales of traffic on the Mississippi River from 1854 to 1863.