These studies were begun more than a decade ago, but it is thought that the recent incorporation of Hawan among the territories of the United States may give to their publication at the present time a pertinence which it otherwise would not have had. I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. C. N. Chapin, librarian of the American Board of Com missioners for Foreign Missions, for the loan of several important volumes, some of them rare and otherwise inaccessible to me; to the Honorable S. Bar — Dole, Professor W. D. Alexander, the Honorable L. A. Thurston, and Judge W. F. Frear, of Honolulu, for information and advice; to two friends now dead Dr. And Mrs. Wesley Newcomb, of Ithaca, New York — for reminiscences, letters, and documents re lating to the early days; to Mr. Thomas G. Thrum, whose admirable series of Hawaiian Annuals, giving for five and twenty years a contemporaneous record of island affairs, have made my work possible; to Mr.