DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAI, RESEARCH. I23 



ters, should appear abundantly, and so should maps, or reproductions of old 

 maps, showing the gradual development of knowledge of the Atlantic and 

 other coast-lines. But also, in the case of a country like the United States^ 

 much more should be done than has ever before been done in any national 

 historical atlas to illustrate cartographically the progress of economic and 

 social development. This is the most significant aspect of American history, 

 and one certain to receive increasing attention in the decades immediately 

 following the present. Maps illustrating the progress of settlement, the 

 growth of population, the progressive occupation of the land, the history of 

 land-policy, the history of industries, the history of slavery, the history of 

 wealth, the history of routes and transportation, of religion, of political opin- 

 ion, should all have their place in such an atlas, in so far as without undue 

 expense it shall prove possible to secure, for these varied phenomena, graphic 

 methods of representation that are scientific in character, securely based, and 

 not misleading. 



But all this means not only the application of much historical scholarship 

 to the conventional lines of American historical geography, but also the ap- 

 plication of much thought and ingenuity to the historical questions and the 

 cartographical problems lying in these newer fields. It means, therefore, the 

 enlisting of varied cooperation and the incurring of relatively large expense. 

 It is deemed premature to ask for present consideration of the question 

 whether such an undertaking shall ever be entered upon. But it is deemed 

 distinctly appropriate, in view of the pressing importance of the general idea, 

 to ask now for the means of putting that question in an answerable form, 

 of taking advice as to what the enterprise should include, of collecting infor- 

 mation as to what it would cost under various possible forms, and of draw- 

 ing up for subsequent consideration a concrete, detailed, and practicable 

 project. Accordingly, a preliminary appropriation, for defraying expenses 

 of consultation, has been solicited. 



TEXTS. 



It should be possible within the year 1910 to complete the texts of the Con- 

 tinental Congress volumes, and to begin their annotation; to complete to a 

 relatively late date the introductions and annotations to the European 

 treaties relating to America; perhaps to finish the collecting of material, so 

 far as it can be collected in this country, on the American debates in Parlia- 

 ment; and certainly to begin the copying of the American material already 

 listed in the Commons Journals. 



MISCELLANEOUS operations: DEPARTMENT BUILDING. 



The Department will no doubt maintain in 1910 activities similar to those 

 described under this head above, in the report concerning the past twelve 



