PREBACE TO THE TaikhD pi loON.

This should be considered an important year in the
annals of British Columbia. With the close of this
summer, exactly a century will have elapsed since the first
permanent settlement within the limits of the Province
was established by a representative of our race in the
howling wilderness, where the nomadic Déné then reigned
master of all he surveyed. That auspicious circumstance
has brought to our mind the propriety of rendering this
work, which records the origins of our flourishing country,
as complete and final in form as we could possibly make
it. With this end in view, it has undergone a thorough
overhauling, which has, however, resulted Jess in changes
and alterations than in useful additions. Besides occasion-
ally noting some further errors of previous writers—a step
in which the kind reader will see nothing but a hint at
additional razsons a’étre for the book—we have added copi-
ous foot-notes for the scholar and three appendices in-
tended to throw further light on as many points of history,
while a more detailed Index will, we imagine, meet with the
approbation of the student and even of the general reader.

This work did not appear before the middle of June,
1904; and the fact that a third edition of it is needed within
a year after its original publication makes it a pleasant
duty for the author to thank the public in general, and the
Canadian press in particular, for their practical apprecia-
tion of its usefulness and the indulgence of their judgment

on its merits. May their kindness to book and author
never grow less!

July, 1905, Vi,