DEPARTMENT OE ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY. 8l 



setts, which were issued at the time of the last annual report, volumes have 

 now been completed for California and Illinois. These volumes, which are 

 handsomely printed in quarto, are published by the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington directly and are the only part of the work of the Department of 

 Economics and Sociology which the Institution has thus far published. 



The sum originally appropriated by the Trustees for this index was $17,500. 

 This sum is now nearly exhausted. It was impossible at the beginning to 

 anticipate the mass of material that would be involved, and, therefore, to esti- 

 mate the amount of money required to print it. It is believed, however, that 

 the work is of great importance to scholars, since it constitues practically the 

 only available general index to state documents. It is hoped that the Trustees 

 will find it possible, by making an additional appropriation, to insure the 

 completion of this important undertaking. 



The readjustments necessitated by the death of Colonel Wright make it 

 desirable at this time to review the past and consider the outlook for the 

 future. When the Department of Economics and Sociology was organized, 

 in the latter part of 1903, an annual appropriation of $30,000 was made by 

 the Carnegie Institution of Washington to continue through a period of five 

 years, making the total appropriation for this object $150,000. In 1905 an 

 additional appropriation of $17,500 was made for the preparation of the 

 Index to State Documents, and an allowance for interest has since then 

 brought the total credit of this Department up to $167,758.48; of this total, 

 $114,450.36 had been drawn down to September 30, leaving a balance of 

 $53,308.12. 



The field was originally divided into eleven divisions. These were in- 

 creased to twelve in 1906 by the addition of a division for the Negro in 

 Slavery and Freedom, while the Index virtually constitutes a thirteenth 

 division. Though the appropriation was originally made to continue through 

 five years, no definite estimate was made with regard to the time needed. It 

 is clear that in so large an undertaking no exact estimates could be made; 

 and, in his report of three years ago, Colonel Wright stated that the time 

 might be longer than at first anticipated. It should, therefore, excite no sur- 

 prise that the work is not yet finished. 



The undertaking has proved to be an exceedingly difficult one. Our 

 country covers an area about equal to that of the whole of Europe. It rep- 

 resents extremes of climate, of natural resources, of social conditions. As 

 far as its economic history is influenced by law, and this is particularly the 

 case in the divisions of Finance, of Money and Banking, and of Social Legis- 

 lation, the situation is very complex. Apart from the Congress of the 

 United States, we have legislative bodies in forty-six States and two Territo- 

 ries, exclusive of Alaska and Hawaii. Europe, including San Marino, 

 Monaco, and Andorra, only contains at the present day 27 sovereignties. 

 Our economic history is more the history of a continent than of a single state. 



