thereof was required to transfer all papers, books and records to the San
Francisco court.
By the Act of 1886 reconstituting the Southern District only current case records were to be sent south and then only when there was a request that the case be transferred. In reply to a recent inquiry the Deputy Clerk of the Northern District stated that to his knowledge there were no copyright records or books for the early period remaining in the San Francisco files.^*
The writer is unaware of a record of copyright, for the period 1854- 1856, granted by the Southern District, or of title copyrighted. That there were few if any books copyrighted during this period is partly substantiated by an article by Willard O. Waters, entitled "Los Angeles Imprints 1851-1876," which appeared in the Quarterly of the Historical Society of Southern California.^^ This checklist shows that for the years 1 85 1- 1 856, other than official proclamations, broadsides, etc., only three books or pamphlets were printed—William Money's Reform of the New Testament Church, 1854; Mormon Politics and Policies, by order of United Independent Democrats, 1856; and Money's Discovery of the Ocean, 1854. Mr. Waters had not located a copy of the latter, and no record of copyright appears in the other two.
There were entered for copyright in the Northern District of California for the five-year period October 25, 185 1, to December 4, 1856, one hundred and nineteen items. These consisted of sixty books, thirty-six lithographs, seven maps, four musical compositions, two broadsides, two newspapers, and six labels. It is to be remembered that the more important books relating to California, or books by authors who remained for only a short time in the State, were published east of the Mississippi or in Europe. Those published in California were for the most part ephemeral, but they present a picture of the interests and problems of a new society.
For example, the first two California books to be entered for copyright related to Mormonism. The first, entered on October 25, 185 1, by Nelson Slater, entitled The Fruits of Mormonism, was published at Coloma, by Harmon and Springer. Cowan states that it was "apparently the only book published in the historic town of Coloma."^^ Slater was one of some thousand persons forced by illness, loss of horses, and weather conditions to spend the winter in Salt Lake Valley while en route to the California gold mines. On reaching Carson Valley a group of these men decided to formulate a statement of the conditions imposed by the Mormons and to recount the treatment received at their hands. In addition to the statement, a petition to Congress, with a hundred and fifty signatures, asking that a military government be established in the Utah Territory, was drawn up. Slater embodied this account and petition in his Fruits of Mormonism. The second book, copyrighted five days later, strangely enough also related to the Mormons. The Abominations of Mormonism Exposed, Containing Many Facts and Doctrines, Concerning That Singular People, during Seven Years of Mem-
