150 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



REPORTS. AIDS. AND GUIDES. 



The Guide to Materials for American History in Paris Archives and Libra- 

 ries, upon which Mr. Leland has long been engaged, was advanced during 

 the year in two ways. Both related chiefly to materials in the libraries, which 

 will form the subject-matter of the first of the three volumes contemplated, 

 the second and third being concerned with the materials in the Archives 

 Nationales and the archives of the various ministries or departments of the 

 French government. Of the two lines of work indicated, one has consisted 

 in the editing of notes already taken — verifying names, establishing dates, 

 determining whether documents have been pubhshed or used, and reducing 

 the original notes to final, and when possible briefer, form. The second 

 line of work has consisted in the examining of manuscripts not previously 

 inspected, as, for instance, the examination of those which have come into 

 the Bibliotheque Nationale since the work was begun in 1907, or since it was 

 interrupted by the advent of war in 1914. Mr. Leland in his reports makes 

 special mention of documents of 1565 relating to the Florida expedition of 

 Ribault, of a large amount of material relating to companies of commerce of 

 the seventeenth century, of a long and important series of letters, chiefly from 

 the ports, to Cabart de Villermont, and running from 1680 to 1706, in which 

 are many letters relating to America. With Mr. Doysie's assistance he has 

 also completed the examination of the Colbert manuscripts. 



All the work of the year has been done in the Bibliotheque Nationale, 

 except an examination in September of the archives of the Compagnie des 

 Indes at Lorient. In general, the plan of the volumes on which he is engaged 

 confines his work strictly to Paris, but these archives at Lorient are, for the 

 period of the eighteenth century, so closely related to those of the Ministry 

 of the Marine in Paris that it seemed inappropriate to leave them out of his 

 survey, more especially as they had been lately reputed to be of importance 

 to the history of Louisiana. The actual amount of interest of their American 

 contents proves to be less than had been supposed, but they contain some 

 useful materials, and these were fully examined and noted. 



The work upon which Mrs. Surrey has been engaged, the making of a 

 calendar of documents in Paris archives relating to the history of the Missis- 

 sippi Valley, is in practice an adjunct of Mr. Leland's and Mr. Doysie's 

 work just reported upon, though it has a separate history and origin, which 

 have been described in previous reports. From the beginning of September 

 to the end of December she was at work in Paris making that portion of her 

 calendar which refers to the numerous papers relating to Louisiana and other 

 parts of the Mississippi Valley contained in Series B of the Archives des 

 Colonies. This involved the thorough examination of several hundred 

 volumes of manuscripts. From January to the end of June she was at work 

 in New York, revising and adding to the calendar, putting the cards into chro- 

 nological order, preparing the index of the names, and performing like tasks. 

 The arranging in chronological order resulted in the consolidation of dupli- 

 cate entries to such an extent as to reduce the total number of cards by more 

 than 2,000, since many documents, chiefly those having the nature of laws, 

 decrees, and orders, have been found to exist in from two to twenty dupli- 

 cates. This consohdation usually makes it possible to detect the original 

 and to place the copies in their proper status. The last part of Mrs. Surrey's 

 work consisted in the calendaring of documents read by means of transcripts 

 recently acquired by the Library of Congress. 



