The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 96, July 1992 - April, 1993 Page: 309

Book Reviews

The author is a professional forester who has spent his life in forestry and
forestry schools. Educated at Pennsylvania State, Yale, and Syracuse, Laur-
ence C. Walker served in the field before becoming an academician at the Uni-
versity of Georgia and Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas, where he
spent a decade as dean of that institution's school of forestry. This book, which
is based in part upon Walker's experiences and observations over a span of forty
years, is an excellent supplement to the works cited above. It will be of interest
especially to those Texans concerned with the economic history of roughly the
eastern fourth of their state.
The first five chapters of the book deal in an innovative way with the subject.
They recount the history of southern forests through the activities of explor-
ers, early settlers, lumbermen, English and American boat builders who used
southern timbers and tars, and professionally-trained foresters. This approach
produces some overlapping chronology and some repetition but otherwise is
quite effective. In discussing each stage, Walker describes how the forests ap-
peared to the different groups and how each of them used, misused, or cared
for the forests and the land. A final chapter gives the author's expectations for
the next few decades. He is not markedly hopeful, partly because he foresees
the professional forester being pushed aside by special interest groups who will
be able to exercise undue influence with legislatures and courts. Quite under-
standably, he has little use for the "radical environmentalists," among the more
articulate of the special interest groups, a sentiment that must be shared by all
who are not ruled by emotionalism and naivete.
Mzssissipps State Unzverszty Roy V. SCOTT
Edward Palmer's Arkansas Mounds. By Marvin D. Jeter. (Fayetteville: University
of Arkansas Press, 1990. Pp. 423. Preface, acknowledgments, introduction,
black-and-white photographs, illustrations, maps, notes, index. $40.00.)
In the 188os, Edward Palmer conducted pioneering investigations at a large
number of Arkansas's prehistoric archaeological sites, focusing on sites with
mounds. These investigations were an important part of the monumental ef-
fort of the Mound Exploration Division of the Smithsonian Institution Bureau
of Ethnology to determine who had built the numerous mounds in eastern
North America. Palmer's investigations in Arkansas for the Mound Exploration
Division were made in the years 1881-1884, with 1882-1883 being the years
of most intensive effort. The most important legacy of these investigations are
descriptions of many important sites that either no longer exist or are exten-
sively damaged. Jeter has successfully presented these descriptions in a well-
organized volume.
Appropriately, the book begins with introductory sections on the Mound
Survey and on Edward Palmer's professional career in natural history and eth-
nology in Arkansas. These sections provide the necessary background for
evaluating Palmer's work. Although Palmer is widely known for his contribu-
tions to natural history, especially his collections of native plants (many of them
new to science), his contributions to ethnology and archaeology in many areas

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