Il8 REPORTS OF* INVESTIGATIONS AND PROJECTS. 



in the Library of Congress, with some volumes borrowed from elsewhere, for 

 original materials for the debates in Parliament on American matters. Most 

 of the large collections of debates have now been worked through, and a 

 good deal of progress has been made in the slower task of searching volumes 

 which are not primarily devoted to such material, but in which a greater or 

 less quantity of it may be expected to be found. 



MISCELLANEOUS OPERATIONS. 



As heretofore, the editing of the American Historical Review has been 

 carried on in the office of the Department and by its staff. Mr. Leland has 

 prepared the annual summary of American historical progress appearing in 

 the Jahresberichte der Geschichtswissenschaft and a similar biennial survey 

 for the Revue Historique. In Paris he has performed various services to 

 organizations needing extensive series of copies or desiring to place orders 

 for work of peculiar difficulty, such as the reproduction of ancient maps in 

 color. Instances which may be mentioned are those of the Department of 

 Archives and History of the State of Mississippi, the Missouri Historical 

 Society, and the Library of Congress, for which it is a pleasure to do any- 

 thing that can in a slight degree requite our numberless and constant obli- 

 gations to its librarian and staff. 



In the last weeks of the year reported upon, an interesting movement of co- 

 operation among historical societies and institutions was inaugurated, in the 

 preparation of which Mr. Leland and the Director of the Department have 

 for some time been concerned, and which has a close relation to the work of 

 the former in Paris. The usual reasons for seeking to promote cooperation 

 among American historical societies are greatly reenforced in the case of 

 those of the Mississippi Valley by the fact that all that region, though now 

 divided into separate States, was in the earlier period of its history an undi- 

 vided area under the rule of France. Its earlier history is therefore a matter 

 for joint attack. If in the exploiting of the French archives for Western his- 

 tory each State or State historical society should proceed independently to 

 search for and copy the papers relating to its particular history, or, as is much 

 oftener the case, relating to its history because bearing on the history of the 

 whole region in general, the result would be an indefinite amount of wasteful 

 duplication. Efforts, encouraged by this Department in every possible way, 

 have been for some time in progress, to secure avoidance of this waste by 

 concerted operations on a systematic plan. At its annual meeting of 1907, 

 the American Historical Association provided for a committee on cooperation 

 of this sort, with Dr. Dunbar Rowland, Director of the Department of 

 Archives and History in the State of Mississippi, as its chairman. 



The committee naturally concluded that all copying and printing of docu- 

 jnents in the French archives ought to be postponed till we should have a 



