The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-04-24
tccndueted by Martha Youns.l

s&@t,H 4IGHUucteQ Dy M1Ftud IOunS-y
 The Vikings Skuli.-A strong and strange story that the reader will not lay down when once opened.
 That so many of the legends. scenes. and characteristics of the Vikings could be brought into modern time and made the chief motives of an up-to-date novel e remarkable.
 Mir. Carling seems destined with this novel to take the world by storm as he did with his former book. ''The Shadow of the Czar." It Is first rate romance
 The chapters of the prologue win the reader at once The little inn of Brittany with its group of knitting danes, its ob- sequious host. the ever hopeful Pol, is a pretty piece of genre work
 Edith Breakspear and her son, Idris, win hearts at the outset Idris Is des- tined to hold them through many strange events long after the fateful tragedy has robbed him of both mother and father.
 The story of the runic ring and the theft of 1t a moment before the fatal de- nouement fastens the story of today closely to that of the ancient Vikings os old
 The weird scenes in the book. the lurid pictures. the vivid lights and sombre shades come in such haste and are set with so skilled an artists hand that the mind is kept In state of startled pleas- ure and alert suspense
 With all the tales of Viking tombs. where the mighty hero lies wrapped about with the tapestry his faithful Hilda wrought; with tales of treasure moro magnificent than any horde of eastern monarch; story of poisoned wine for the fearless woman in the vault of Faren- hall: gorgeous festivities at the coming of age of the Earl. there runs the most possible and practical vein of life of to- day.
 It Is a wonderful piece of work. The characters are well drawn and consist ens. Idrfs Maudie is worthy of all the good his unceaseless effort and the for tune of the gods bring to him.
 Lorelei is a woman of warm true heart, as well as a weird beauty who keeps our pulse quick with interest and mind alive with wonder as to what she will do next, with her dauntless spirit and her love of truth and justice.
 Beatrice, with her weird second sight inherited from her ancestors. Hilda, the Airuna, the all-wise woman, was yet the girl who. with her fair English face, was to turn all London wild with her win someness.
 The interplay of her love for her broths CT and for Idris, with her weird reading of runic rhymes, unconscious opening of old mysteries, and brave loyalty to Lor- ellie, make a story of rare and interest," compelling contrast.
 Idris was, as a child of seven. made to swear to clear his fathers memory of a crime imputed to him. This Is the f0un- dation of the plot of the book. To this end through pages of rare interest, the writer leads us.
 The Vikings Skull is already in it's second edition and scarcely two weeks on the market.
 The Vikings Skull, by John R. Car ling, author of the Shadow of the Czar. Little. Brown & Co.,. publishers, Boston.
 
 The Rainbow Chasers: Full of the atmosphere of the West, with Dick Brew gter, alias Jackson Blake, cowboy, land speculator, and lover, for it's hero, Mir. Watson's new novel, without being in the least copy, has many of the attrac- tions of Mir. Wister's hero, "The Vir- ginian."
 The Rainbow Chasers is a virile Ameri- can novel with Its principal scenes laid fin Western Kansas during the land boom of 1885.
 The male characters are vigorous men. with red blood in their veins; and the heroine. Elinor Spencer, is a high-spirited but lovable Western girl.
 Under Sunny Skies-To study the dif- ferent industries of a country is to open up an insight into the character and habits and life of It's people. We know cotton growers have long seasons of waiting between the sowing, the blowing, the picking of their staple. We know khe leisure that such industry breeds, and the credit system and the rest of the story We know the hard work and ready s 'zing on rest and jol.ty Of the miner. and so on through the endless lists of mans occupations and industries. These facts and the story of the indus- tries of different nations and sections are now brought into the school room, and the young people of this day may gain a very cosmopolitan view of our earth and it's peoples before they have entered Mfes business arena.
 When I read Aline May Eager's &C., count of the Chestnut Farms of Italy think of the vast native forests of Chest nuts of our Southern States and of how little we value them.
 There is however, beginning now to be some convenient value in the crop of nuts and numbers of bushels are gathered and shipped from the mountains of Ala