DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH. IOO, 



For statements respecting the general plans of the Department and the 

 purposes which its operations are intended to subserve, the Director begs 

 leave to refer to former reports, and confines the present report to state- 

 ments respecting the progress of specific publications and other undertakings. 

 The publications of the Department, as has been explained in previous re- 

 ports, fall naturally into two classes, the one that of reports, aids, and guides, 

 the other that of textual publications of documents. Under these two heads, 

 and a third, relating to the miscellaneous activities of the Department, the 

 work of the past year, and the plans for 1913, will be successively considered 

 in this report. 



WORK OF THE PAST YEAR. 



REPORTS, AIDS, AND GUIDES. 



Only one volume has been published by the Department during the year. 

 Prof. Marion D. Learned's "Guide to the materials relating to American his- 

 tory in the German state archives," No. 150 of the publications of the Car- 

 negie Institution of Washington, was issued from the press in March as a 

 volume of 352 pages, the contents of which have been sufficiently described 

 in previous reports. The work has received favorable notice in important 

 historical reviews and has already been put to good use by several historical 

 investigators. 



Prof. Herbert E. Bolton's "Guide to the materials for United States his- 

 tory in Mexican archives," Publication No. 163, has during the year pro- 

 ceeded toward publication. Although recent disturbances in Mexico are 

 reported to have produced some disarrangement of the established order of 

 the materials in certain archives in the federal city, and may have entailed 

 larger disasters in certain provincial capitals in the north of Mexico, it is 

 hoped nevertheless that Professor Bolton's book may prove to be what it 

 was unquestionably well adapted to be, a permanent help to all investigators 

 in Southwestern history and to the history of our relations with Mexico. 

 Its index is now being made. 



The manuscript of the first volume of the "Guide to the materials for 

 American history, to 1783, in the Public Record Office of Great Britain," 

 Publication No. 90A, prepared by Prof. Charles M. Andrews, of Yale Uni- 

 versity, was dispatched from the office of this Department in the latter part 

 of December. This volume embraces the compiler's general introduction upon 

 the Public Record Office, and an elaborate survey of the American material 

 for the Colonial and Revolutionary periods, contained in what are technically 

 called the State Papers (State Papers Foreign and Foreign Office Papers; 

 State Papers Domestic and Home Office Papers ; State Papers Miscellane- 

 ous; and Colonial Office Papers). The second volume presents Professor 

 Andrews's detailed account of what are technically called Departmental Rec- 

 ords (Admiralty, Audit Office, Custom-House, Treasury, War Office, etc.) 

 and of the miscellaneous section, which embraces the High Court of Ad- 



