The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 35, July 1931 - April, 1932 Page: 245

Book Reviews and Notices

well be considered a model. The numerous and ample notes reveal
his intimate and comprehensive knowledge of the published and
manuscript materials in the field of Spanish American history and
general exploration. The bibliography cites not only the works
known and used by Pichardo but all modern writings pertinent to
a study of the subject. The index of more than sixty pages an-
swers every legitimate demand of the investigator. Not the least
useful of Professor Hackett's editorial offerings are the chapter
divisions. Pichardo's report comprised three thousand folio pages,
broken only by paragraph numbers. Professor Hackett has an-
alysed the present volume into fourteen chapters with appropriate
titles which add greatly to the intelligent reading of the book.
The inauguration of such an undertaking as Professor Hackett
has so happily begun prompts the specialist in Southwestern
history to retrospection. Thirty years ago Parlunan, Bancroft, and
Bandelier alone among America's historians had written in the
field. Bancroft alone had given critical attention to the Spanish
period of Texas history. A glance at Professor Hackett's notes
and bibliography reveals the truly amazing activity in the field
since 1903 when Bolton published his first article in THE QUAR-
TERLY of the Texas State Historical Association. It is not an
exaggeration to say that the early Spanish period of Texas and
California has been authoritatively written during the past twenty-
eight years; and that literally hundreds of thousands of pages of
documents have been collected from Mexican and Spanish archives.
The result of this extensive activity is that the history of the Span-
ish Southwest can be studied now as intensively as colonial New
England has been studied. Professor Hackett's Pichardo is an
outstanding contribution in the field. Appropriately, it is a
product--a creditable product-of the campus of the University
of Texas.
EUGENE C. BARKER.
Forty-Niners: the Chronicle of the California Trail. By Archer
Butler Hulbert. (Boston. Little, Brown, and Company,
1931. Pp. xvii, 340. Price $3.50.)
Several years ago Professor Hulbert completed a series of large-
scale maps of the Oregon and California emigrant trails. The
maps were based upon exhaustive study of official surveyors' records
in the General Land Office at Washington as well as published and

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