The local history of the West must yet be collected from many varieties of sources. The state historical societies have been active for many years, their more important collections comprising: _Publications of the Arkansas Hist. Assn._, _Annals of Iowa_, _Iowa Hist. Record_, _Iowa Journal of Hist. and Politics_, _Collections of the Minnesota Hist. Soc._, _Trans. of the Kansas State Hist. Soc._, _Trans. and Rep. of the Nebraska Hist. Soc._, _Proceedings of the Missouri Hist. Soc._, _Contrib. to the Hist. Soc. of Montana_, _Quart. of the Oregon Hist. Soc._, _Quart. of the Texas State Hist. Assn._, _Collections of the Wisconsin State Hist. Soc._ The scattered but valuable fragments to be found in these files are to be supplemented by the narratives contained in the histories of the single states or sections, the more important of these being: T. H. Hittell, _California_; F. Hall, _Colorado_; J. C. Smiley, _Denver_ (an unusually accurate and full piece of local history); W. Upham, _Minnesota in Three Centuries_; G. P. Garrison, _Texas_; E. H. Meany, _Washington_; J. Schafer, _Hist. of the Pacific Northwest_; R. G. Thwaites, _Wisconsin_, and the _Works_ of H. H. Bancroft. The comprehensive collection of geographic data for the West is the _Reports of Explorations and Surveys for a Railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean_, made by the War Department and published by Congress in twelve huge volumes, 1855-. The most important official predecessors of this survey left the following reports: E. James, _Account of an Expedition from Pittsburg to the Rocky Mountains, performed in the Years 1819, 1820, ... under the Command of Maj. S. H. Long_ (Phila., 1823); J. C. Frémont, _Report of the Exploring Expeditions to the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1842, and to Oregon and North California in the Years 1843-'44_ (28th Cong., 2d sess., Sen. Doc. 174); W. H. Emory, _Notes of a Military Reconnoissance from Ft. Leavenworth ... to San Diego ..._ (30th Cong., 1st sess., Ex. Doc. 41); H. Stansbury, _Exploration and Survey of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah ..._ (32d Cong., 1st sess., Sen. Ex. Doc. 3). From the great number of personal narratives of western trips, those of James O. Pattie, John B. Wyeth, John K. Townsend, and Joel Palmer may be selected as typical and useful. All of these, as well as the James narrative of the Long expedition, are reprinted in the monumental R. G. Thwaites, _Early Western Travels_, which does not, however, give any aid for the period after 1850. Later travels of importance are J. I. Thornton, _Oregon and California in 1848 ..._ (N.Y., 1849); Horace Greeley, _An Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco in the Summer of 1859_ (N.Y., 1860); R. F. Burton, _The City of the Saints, and across the Rocky Mountains to California_ (N.Y., 1862); R. B. Marcy, _The Prairie Traveller, a Handbook for Overland Expeditions_ (edited by R. F. Burton, London, 1863); F. C. Young, _Across the