A more characteristic and amazing American story was never more delightfully told. As an illustration of the growth and development which have made the Northwest a miracle of progress and prosperity it is unparalleled, and it reminds the reader that the unprecedentedly rapid advance of this country is not an old story of past achievement, but is more surprising than ever. Mr. WARNER has the happy gift of noting the most interesting and significant facts, and of compelling statistics to illuminate instead of confusing his narrative. An admirable map of the region treated by him illustrates the article. The series will be continued through the spring and summer, and it will evidently prove to be one of the most notable and valuable of contributions to magazine literature and to popular knowledge of the granary of America and of the world. The charm of Mr. WARNER as a travelling companion has been often proved in HARPER'S MAGAZINE and HARPER'S WEEKLY, but in these fresh fields and pastures new it is as fresh and captivating as the noble region itself. Mr. Warner is a traveller who sees and understands, and he adds something beside in a kind of sixth sense of divination. . The policy of HARPER'S MAGAZINE in thus broadening its extent by these valuable observations cannot be too highly commended.-Boston Traveller. Mr. Warner, in these arduous labors, promises to do a great work for the West.-N. Y. Journal of Commerce. HARPER'S MAGAZINE, $4.00 a Year, Post-paid. For sale in Chicago by BRENTANO'S, CRANSTON & STOWE, A. C. MCCLURG & Co., S. A. MAXWELL & Co., C. O. PERRY, PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, F. A. REVELL, J. & R. SIMMS, WESTERN NEWS Co., and by other booksellers and newsdealers; or, remittance may be made direct to HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. HARPER'S PERIODICALS. 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A Description of Six Hundred Miles of Canoeing "The next best thing to taking a voyage for one's selt down our historic waterways will be found in reading Mr. Thwaites' charming narrative of his journeyings. The combination of ideal and intensely practical experi ences of the canoe voyagers, their picturesque surround. ings, encounters with elements and natives, serious and laughable adventures, are all portrayed in so natural and agreeable a manner as to make the reader one of the crew of the vessel for the time being, and inspire him with a strong desire to go and do likewise. -State Journal, Madison. Witnesses to Christ. By A Contribution to Christian Apologetics. "Witnesses to Christ" is the title of the second series of eight lectures "For the Establishment and Defense of Christian Truth" delivered upon the Baldwin Foundation, in November and December, 1887, before the Hobart Guild of the University of Michigan. 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Sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price by the publishers, HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Boston. THE DIAL THE CESSIONS OF WESTERN LANDS TO THE UNITED STATES.* The centennial celebrations which are soon to be held in commemoration of the first English settlement of the Northwestern States are inspiring much historical writing on the events which culminated in the notable settlement at Marietta, Ohio, in April, 1788. The organization, in 1786, of the Ohio company in Massachusetts for the promotion of settlements in the Northwest Territory, and the enactment by Congress of the matchless Ordinance of 1787, which forever excluded slavery from the territory and established therein an enlightened and beneficent code of laws, are among the topics which have been largely discussed. Less attention has been given to the cessions of the western lands by individual states to the United States-a measure of great importance, which antedated the settlement by a few years and made the enactment and operation of the Ordinance of 1787 both possible and practicable. The thirteen original colonies were isolated communities, having little social or business. *NEW YORK AND OHIO'S CENTENNIAL. By Douglas Campbell. "Magazine of American History," March, 1888. intercourse, and about as much sympathy of feeling with one another as the states of continental Europe now have. A common danger brought them to act together in the war of the Revolution, gave them some knowledge of each other, and a faint idea of the value of union. The old Confederacy, however, was little better than a rope of sand; and when, during the closing years of the war, the feeling of common danger was fading out, there were indications that the states might resume something of their former condition of isolation. A bond of common interest other than self-protection was wanting; and a joint ownership in the unoccupied lands west of the Alleghanies seemed to be the only national ligament which could then hold them in a cordial and permanent union. Four states, however,- Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York,-claimed the western lands. as their own, on the ground of having been granted to them in their original charters, or having, in the case of New York, been acquired from the Indians. Virginia claimed, in the words of her charter of 1609,-“ All those lands, countries and territories, situate, lying and being four hundred miles .. and all that all along the sea coast, space and circuit of land lying from the sea coast of the precinct aforesaid, up into the land throughout, from sea to sea, west and north-west" [Hazard Hist. Col., I. 64, 65]. In 1624 the crown annulled this charter by dissolving the London company, the grantee, and making Virginia a royal colony. The rights of the colony as to western lands were not thereby affected; for the new charter made no description of boundary lines, and the crown on many later occasions recognized the claims of Virginia to lands west of the Alleghanies, [N. Y. Hist. Col., 1878, p. 129.] The Massachusetts charters of 1629 and 1691 made her northern and southern boundary lines extend to the South Sea, meaning the Pacific Ocean. The same provisions were in the Connecticut charter of 1662. There were similar descriptions in the charters of the Carolinas and Georgia; but the claims of these colonies did not extend to the northwest territory or to Kentucky. At the time these charters were made, the British government had very crude ideas of the geography of the western continent. In extending the boundaries of the colonies to the South Sea, it was supposed that the Pacific coast was much nearer the Atlantic coast than it proved to be. In 1608 Captain Newport was instructed to sail up the James river and find a passage to the South Sea; and Captain John Smith, at |