The History of the Pacific States, we have seen, was an evolution, passing through the stages of handbook and encyclopædia before it became a history. But when the last idea had been reached, the development of the project was by no means complete, but rather just begun. The necessity of the Native Races was demonstrated before work had proceeded for a twelve-month. As late as 1878, Mr. Bancroft estimated that the history proper would comprise but fourteen volumes at the outside.
In his letter to Mrs. Victor, dated August 1st of that year, we get an interesting glimpse of the plan in an earlier stage. The work is to be divided, he says, somewhat in the following manner: Conquest of Darien, one volume; Conquest of Mexico, one volume; Mexico under the Viceroys, two volumes; Mexican Revolution and Modern History, one or two; Explorations Northward and the History of California, three or four; the Northwest Coast, Oregon and British Columbia together, two or three; Alaska, one. Under the head of California history was to be included somewhere the histories of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada, and the history of Oregon was likewise to include Washington, Idaho, and Montana. Oregon and British Columbia he thought could be written in a year. Not until six more years had passed was it finally recognized that natural expansion as the work proceeded would necessitate devoting to the series of history proper a number of volumes exactly double that which was then contemplated. To this series were added as a supplement an even half dozen volumes.
If we find that the outline grew from that of a few volumes in 1872 to one of almost forty in 1884, and that the work expanded fourteen volumes after it had been definitely laid out, we are not at all surprised that the part of the whole which Mr. Bancroft intended to write grew
