Handwörterbuch, which Doctor Bolton had extra-illustrated

with over 800 portraits of the persons treated. Transfers and exchanges

As the tables indicate; receipts from transfers have continued, notably from the State, Treasury, Post-Office, and Interior Departments. The opportunities of the Library for distribution are enhanced by the following provision of the appropriations act for 1909-10:

The Librarian of Congress may from time to time transfer to other governmental libraries within the District of Columbia, including the Public Library, books and material in the possession of the Library of Congress in his judgment no longer necessary to its uses, but in the judgment of the custodians of such other collections likely to be useful to them, and may dispose

of or destroy such material as has become useless. The continuance of exchanges under the system heretofore pursued (of printed lists of “Offers” and “Wants”) requires more service and a greater space for sorting and listing than we have recently had at our command. Lists of our “Wants" will of course continue; but itemized lists of “Offers” must for the present be more limited. Descriptive lists may take their place-indicating in a summary way material of a certain nature offered in bulk, and invitations may be extended to libraries of importance to send representatives to examine our collection of duplicates and make selection here. A fundamental difficulty is that of dealing fairly with the great number of remoter libraries individually. An arrangement should be possible by which we could deal directly with a few central institutions which would in turn attend to the distribution within the geographical areas to which they owe a particular duty. The institutions to which this task-and privilege-logically belongs are the state libraries. We are not without hope that they may realize and undertake it,

DIVISION OF MANUSCRIPTS

a

Accessions

(From the report of the Chief, Mr. Hunt) a The more important manuscripts accessions are described Mss: in detail in Appendix III of this report.

The collections have been enriched by several notable gifts during the past year, among which may be mentioned that of Mr. J. P. MacLean, of Franklin, Ohio, of a large number of papers illustrating the progress of the Shaker movement in Ohio, comprising letters from and to the community at Union Village, records of the village, biographical notebooks, music, prayers, and journals, the whole forming a valuable historical record of the rise of Shakerism in the Middle West; that of Hon. Francis Burton Harrison, a Representative in Congress from New York, catalogued as "The Burton Harrison Collection,” being letters to his father, Burton N. Harrison, his grandfather, Jesse Burton Harrison, and his great-grandfather, Samuel Jordan Harrison, from Thomas Jefferson, Henry Clay, R. R. Gurley, N. P. Trist, Jefferson Davis and others, all, especially the Jefferson Davis letters, throwing important light upon historical events; that of Dr. Ellery C. Stowell of the original manuscript report, written by Louis Renault, on the subject of Contraband of War adopted in 1908-9 by the London International Naval Conference; that of Mrs. William Reed, of Baltimore, being the private diary (2 volumes) kept by Hon. William B. Reed during his mission to China in 1857-1859; and that of Dr. Stuyvesant Fish Morris of the certificates of election as President and Vice-President of the United States, of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, in 1833, and the certificate of election, as President, of Martin Van Buren, in 1837

The transfer of manuscripts heretofore in other government offices has given the Division several important acces

Mss:

Accessions

sions. The Department of State transferred all the Applications for Office during the administration of George Washington, and the journal and minutes of the Electoral Commission of 1877; the Treasury Department, the original vouchers and accounts of General Washington's expenses during the whole period of his command of the army during the Revolution; the Interior Department, the rich collection of historical documents filed in connection with the Revolutionary pension claims, and papers pertaining to the slave trade and negro colonization, 1862–1872; the Post-Office Department, certain miscellaneous papers, being drafts of letters, opinions of Assistant Attorneys-General and applications for office from 1825 to 1875.

The wisdom of these and similar transfers is apparent. Historical papers which are rarely or never used in a government department are apt to be forgotten, to be stored in inaccessible places or even lost. In the nature of things, , their importance is estimated by present-day needs, and, although they may have great value from an historical standpoint, their uselessness in the transaction of the current business of the department causes them to suffer a want of care in their preservation. On the occasions when investigators desire to consult them, they are not readily accessible, and sometimes can not be found at all; and the search for them takes up the time of clerks which can ill be spared from current official work. The accommodations for the student are not well adapted for his purpose, and his presence in a busy office is an inconvenience. In the Library, on the other hand, provision is made especially for historical papers, they are readily accessible, they are in charge of those whose business it is to take proper care of them, and the arrangements for students leave nothing to be desired.

The more important purchases of the year include the letter and log books of Admiral Sir George Cockburn (17721853) in 54 volumes, covering the years 1788 to 1847, embracing a narrative of the proceedings of Lord Nelson's squadron in the cruise from Gibraltar and the Battle of the Nile, 1798-1804; Cockburn's mission from Spain to her American colonies in 1811; the orders and movements of the British squadron in American waters in 1814; and the voyage to St. Helena, whither he carried Napoleon in 1815.

The Bozman papers: John Leeds Bozman (1757–1823), Bozman papers historian of Maryland, lived near Easton, Md., on the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay, where he conducted a large estate and pursued the life of an antiquarian and historian. He left his library and papers, upon his death, to his nephew, John Leeds Kerr, who was a Representative in Congress from December, 1825, to March, 1829, and from December, 1831, to March, 1833, and they were sold by descendants of the latter to the Library. They contain matter concerning the economic history of the Eastern Shore from the beginning of the eighteenth century, fragmentary data relating to John Pope and his estate, “Rome” (now Capitol Hill), and other valuable papers; but the most valuable items of the collection are the manuscript copies of the speeches delivered by two of the Maryland delegates, Luther Martin and James McHenry, in 1787, in the Maryland legislature, concerning the proceedings in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The substance of Martin's speech was published by him; but up to this time McHenry's speech had been utterly lost.

The Jefferson and Hamilton collections have been added to by the purchase of additional letters; and an interesting contribution to the history of South Carolina federalism has been obtained in a number of letters from Hamilton, Timothy Pickering and John Quincy Adams to William Loughton Smith, a Representative from South Carolina in the First Congress.

Mss:

Calendars

The preparation of additional calendars of the manuscript collections has been continued, and has progressed as satisfactorily as could be expected, when the small force employed in the Division and the length of time which the preparation of a calendar always takes, are considered.

The calendar of the Andrew Johnson papers was half completed when the assistant who was preparing it resigned, and it will be continued as soon as his place has been filled.

The calendar of the Military Correspondence of George Washington during the Revolution, compiled by Mr. J. C. Fitzpatrick, will, it is confidently hoped, be ready for publication before the close of the next fiscal year. The magnitude of this work will be realized when it is stated that the last calendar prepared by the Division, that of the Correspondence of George Washington with the Continental Congress, comprised 741 printed pages, and that the calendar now being prepared will be twice as voluminous.

The State Department published, in 1901, a calendar of the Applications for Office during Washington's Administration, and transferred the remaining copies of the edition to the Library, with the papers.

Calendars of the Van Buren, Jackson, and John Fitch papers and of the Jefferson accessions are in progress.

The calendar of the New Mexico papers, which Miss Elizabeth H. West is preparing, now covers from the year 1621 to 1805, about 9,260 cards having been written.

The transcripts of historical documents relating to American colonial affairs in the Public Record Office and British Museum, in London, and the Bodleian Library, at Oxford, continue to be received at intervals, and now aggregate about 67,500 folios of foolscap size. They are being catalogued in the Division, and the catalogue is partially com

pleted. The Journals The editing of the Journals of the Continental Congress is of the Continental Congress a work peculiarly identified with my predecessor, Mr. Ford,

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