In 4 Nephi 1:6 we find the following:
"And thus did the thirty and eighth year pass away, and also the thirty and ninth, and forty and first, and the forty and second, yea, even until forty and nine years had passed away, and also the fifty and first, and the firfty and second; yea, and even until fifty and nine years had passed away."
According to Daniel Peterson, this verse has been greatly ridiculed by some critics of the Book of Mormon, but it is, in fact, an exceptionally good illustration of the annalist Mormon, at work. Manifestly, he was summarizing other chronicles that he had before him. However, so little was happening in this period that even the conscientious Mormon began to omit annual accounts. It is apparently difficult even for inspired authors to make good and happy times live up to our taste for the sensational and the horrific. "May you live in interesting times!" is, in fact, an old Chinese curse. And Leo Tolstoy began his great novel Anna Karenina with the marvelous line: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." [Daniel C. Peterson, "Their Own Worst Enemies," in Studies in Scripture: Book of Mormon, Part 2, p. 104]