2 1 2 Notes and Neivs against fire, and a valuable chapter of " Don'ts " which could well be read by all custodians of records. Volume VIII. of the Transactions of the Colonial Society of Massa- chusetts, bringing the record down to the autumn of 1904, and a fascicle of the next volume bringing it to date, will be issued this month. Volumes II. and IV. are in progress. The Society also has in hand a volume containing a check-list of the Boston newspapers from 1704 to 1780. The Essex Institute has published the first volume of The Diary of William Bentley, D. D. Bentley was the pastor of the East Church of Salem, and his diary is among the manuscripts of the American Anti- quarian Society. This first volume runs from April, 1784, to December, 1792. Its value as a source of local history is unusual. A brief biographical sketch by the late Judge Joseph G. Waters serves as a preface. The Medford (Massachusetts) Historical Society has published the Proceedings of the Celebration of the Tivo Hundred and Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Settlement of Medford. A history of the town, by John H. Hooper, serves as a preface. Two volumes dealing with the history of the Connecticut valley have appeared this summer : Historic Towns of the Connecticut River Valley, by George S. Roberts (Schenectady, N. Y., Robson and Adee), and Edwin M. Bacon's The Connecticut River and the Valley of the Connecticut (Putnam, "Historic Rivers Series"). Three volumes have been added to the Grafton Historical Series, edited by Dr. Henry M. Stiles (Grafton Press) ; In Olde Connecticut (second edition), by Charles B. Todd; Historical Hadley, by Alice M. Walker ; and King Philip's War, by George W. Ellis and John E. Morris. From the contents of the Connecticut Magazine for April-June we note the following contributions as having historical interest : " Last Years of Connecticut under the British Crown ", by Benjamin P. Adams; " Journal of Sir Peter Pond ", printed from an old manuscript and dealing with his experiences among the Indians and in the fur-trade during the latter half of the eighteenth century; "Influence of Eccle- siastical Doctrines on Government in the United States ", by Joel N. Eno ; " The Development of Steam Navigation — First Steamboat on the Connecticut River ", by C. Seymour Bullock ; and " Peter Morton — An Early American Merchant and Importer ", by Dr. Everett J. Mc- Knight. Bulletin 100, Legislation 26, of the New York State Library is devoted to an Index of Neiv York Governors' Messages, 1777-1901, pre- pared by Malcolm G. Wyer and Charlotte E. Groves. The Story of Joncaire, his Life and Times on the Niagara, by Frank H. Severance (privately printed), constitutes a "portion of an extended study, as yet unpublished, of the operations of the French on the lower
