TO A RAPIDLY DISAPPEARING CLASS, THE PIONEER PROSPECTORS, WHOSE BRAVERY, INTELLIGENCE AND INDUSTRY BLAZED THE TRAILS IN THE WESTERN WILDERNESS FOR ADVANCING CIVILIZATION, AND MADE POSSIBLE THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREAT WEST, THIS VOLUME IS VERY RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

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 PREFACE

Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!—Job xix, 23.

Job

Books have, from time immemorial, been the conservators of human wisdom, the repositories of information, the mentors of youth and adolescence, the counsellors of manhood, the comfort and companionship of age.

The experience of an individual, school or era, when committed to book form, becomes the common property of all succeeding time, and the accumulated knowledge of the past, transmitted from generation to generation, through the medium of books, may with justice be regarded as the most valuable of human heritages.

But they have not always been unmixed blessings; they have both led and misled; they have elucidated, yet have mystified.

They have dissipated the shadows of ignorance and superstition, but in some instances have confused and obscured the searchlight of truth. In the economy of human affairs, books have been factors of no small importance. They have proved the most potent expositors of iniquitous systems, and when properly directed against crying evils have accomplished 8 speedy reforms. They have precipitated wars, incited revolts and seditions in the cause of progress, yet have intensified prejudice, political, religious and racial. With silent eloquence, they have cried out against the wrongs of those who had none to plead their cause, while in other cases, their influence has tended to perpetuate existing abuses. In some instances they have taught men to be content with servitude, in others have ignited the beacon fires of liberty. Though they are usually found enlisted under the banners of justice, yet no cause has ever been so unworthy, and no institution so unholy, that books have not been written in their defence. In verity, they have sown both wheat and tares.

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Books have been written on every conceivable subject, under all conditions, by all sorts of 

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