The fact that Ohio has just passed her hundredth birthday, and that she will throughout the year be engaged in various interesting forms of civic celebration, renders singularly opportune the appearance of this compact and picturesque narrative in which the reader will find a complete picture of Buckeye progress, a picture etched rather than painted, for the book is not of formidable length, and the author has been compelled to adopt a crisp and nimble style to tell his story in due space. The term "story" is an elastic, and perhaps not always an accurately descriptive one. In this instance the author has given it a simple and effective definition by making it stand for a direct, natural and often dramatic account of Ohio's romantic origin and extraordinary development. While a preference for the picturesque phases of the story is shown even in the treatment of the most practical elements of State character, there is an obvious selection of those pictorial traits which have in themselves a special significance, and which, taken in the group, present the essential characteristics of the commonwealth. Indeed the narrative affords an excellent opportunity for discovering the immense individuality of Ohio in the great family of States. The great diversity of character among the States, diversities engendered by geographical as well as by ancestral conditions, is, perhaps not very generally recognized. The promising series of which this volume forms the second issue cannot fail, if each author continues to work with care and sincerity, to broaden our knowledge of all the elements that go to form our character as a nation, and to deepen that sense of fraternal sympathy, the cultivation of which has become a point of national pride. SOME SUCCESSFUL WOMEN. By Sarah K. Bolton. With Portraits. Boston. D. Lothrop Co. Price $1.25. Mrs. Sarah K. Bolton is the author of several interesting books which have given her a wide reputation and this new volume from her pen will be warmly welcomed. It consists of twelve brief biographies of American women who have in various walks and professions earned success so marked as to make their names familiar to every household in the country, and who have done much to inspire others of their sex to follow in their footsteps. Among them are Marion Harland (Mrs. Terhune), Mrs. G. R. Allen (Pansy), Clara Barton, the philanthropist, Alice Freeman, the former president of Wellesley College, Rachel Bodley, dean of the Woman's Medical College, Philadelphia, Frances E. Willard, whose labors in behalf of temperance have given her a place among the foremost of American women. Mrs. Candace Wheeler and her daughter Dora who have done so much to develop the love for decorative art in this country and to create opportunities for its practical application, with others who have gained equally distinguished places in other departments of art, literature and industry. The portraits add greatly to the interest of the sketches.