YULE-TIDE.  Illustrated stories by favorite American and English Authors.  Edited by Ella Farman, with a Proem by Henry Randall Waite, Boston:  D. Lothrop & Co.  Price, $2.00.  The contents of this charming volume no less than its beautiful outside, make a strong and direct appeal to the buyer of books.  It is not often that so much that is varied and choice is brought together in a single collection.  There are short stories by Rose Terry Cooke, George Cary Eggleston, Arthur Gilman, Susan Coolidge, Margaret Sidney, Mrs. A. M. Diaz, and others; poems by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Mrs. A.D.T.  Whitney, Clara Doty Bates, Mary D. Brine, Celia Thaxter, Mary E. Blake, Christina Rossetti, A. Mary F. Robinson, and Mrs. Mulock-Craik, with long stories originally published in serial form in WIDE AWAKE,—­“The Silver City,” by Fred A. Ober, and “Old Caravan Days,” by Mary Hartwell Catherwood.  All these are profusely and beautifully illustrated.  The binding is exceedingly tasteful.  The volume is put up in a neat paper box, and makes a handsome and fitting present for the holidays.

AMERICAN EXPLORERS.  The United States has played a late but an honorable part in the work of Polar discovery.  The names of Kane, Hayes, Hall and De Long recall memories of labors and sufferings in the cause which may be placed alongside the best achievements of the navigators of other nations.  The stories of the adventures and hardships of these heroes and martyrs of the Arctic regions are not, however, easily accessible to the general public.  They are either severally published in large and costly volumes, or are still only to be found in the official records of the United States Government.  The scale, as well as the price, of these narratives makes them unsuitable for consultation, more especially by young readers.  Professor Nourse has, therefore, done excellent service in preparing, chiefly from official sources, the records of American Exploration in the Ice Zones, and in giving them a popular form.  The volume embraces notices of the expeditions sent out by Mr. Grinnell, under De Haven and Kane, for the relief of Sir John Franklin; the late Admiral Rodger’s explorations in the seas north of Behring Strait; the voyages of Hayes and Hall up Smith Sound; Schwatka’s remarkable sledge journey of three thousand miles in search of the records and journals of the Franklin Expedition; the disastrous cruise of the Jeannette, and the expeditions sent out by land and sea to the rescue of De Long and his crew.  There are also short accounts of United States’ explorations in the Antarctic regions, and a statement of the object, and position of the Arctic observers under the United States Signal Stations.  One of these stations, as we know, has been placed at Lady Franklin Bay, Smith Sound, in the very forefront of the battle with the forces of the polar ice; for two seasons nothing has been heard of it, and relief ships are at this moment on their way to the north,