236 REPORTS ON INVESTIGATIONS AND PROJECTS. 



by statesmen and public men and other persons interested in the 

 diplomatic career of the United States. The work of the bureau 

 has enabled one to speak with a considerable assurance concerning 

 the amount of material and the expense of transcription, for the 

 estimated number of words was not a mere guess made after a cas- 

 ual examination, but a real estimate made after months of work, 

 during which a large majority of the volumes were handled and 

 their pages turned. While, therefore, in the end the estimate is 

 only an estimate and may be far from absolute accuracy, it is one 

 based on patient and laborious examination. A considerable por- 

 tion of this work was done by Mr. James Herbert Russell, of this 

 bureau. It should be said that the officials of the State Department 

 are in sympathy with this work and desire to have these valuable 

 records printed. Special thanks are due to Mr. Andrew Hussey 

 Allen, of the Bureau of Rolls and Library, and to Mr. Pendleton 

 King, of the Bureau of Index and Archives, who took active interest 

 and in every way gave facility for the work of examination. 



IX. Attention was called in the last report to the task of preparing 

 a bibliography of the writings on American history for 1903. It was 

 then hoped that the list would soon be published, but a number of 

 unavoidable delays necessitated the postponement of publication. 

 The volume has, however, at last appeared. The task of deciding 

 on method of classi fixation and on the forms of entry and other 

 problems of this sort incident to the first publication of a book of 

 this character are in part responsible for the delay. Most of the 

 labor was done, under the general guidance of the director, by Mr. 

 William Adams Slade and Miss Laura Thompson, of the Library 

 of Congress, and Mr. Ernest D. Lewis, of the bureau. It is perhaps 

 unnecessary in this report to enlarge on the value and the usefulness 

 of this publication, which I believe should be continued from year to 

 year. No other agency can do the work so well as the Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington. It is one of those undertakings that, 

 having no commercial basis and being of general interest to the pro- 

 fession, naturally fall to the Institution ; it will be of continuing use 

 to all students and investigators in American history as well as to 

 librarians ; it will do for investigators throughout the country what 

 many are seeking without satisfactory advantages to do for them- 

 selves, in order that they may not fall hopelessly behind in their 

 knowledge of the bibliography of their subject. The natural sciences 

 are adequately cared for in the great international series, while most 

 fields of historical bibliography are neglected ; and yet historical 

 science, without other appliances or materials with which to work, is 



