182 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



traction of the material for the history of slavery which is to be found 

 in the judicial reports of the American States. Her work has con- 

 sisted partly in summarizing briefly the judicial decisions through 

 which we can trace the historical development of the law respecting 

 slavery, and partly in extracting from the reports those numerous 

 narrations and original documents which illustrate by a multitude of 

 actual instances the whole history of slavery as a social and economic 

 institution. A year ago Mrs. Catterall had finished the Maryland 

 reports. She has now finished those of South Carolina, and begun 

 those of Kentucky. From the beginning of October 1919, she is able 

 to devote to our service all of her working time. 



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. The 

 American Historical Association and various other historical organi- 

 zations have been given such aid as could appropriately be rendered, 

 in respect to investigations in Washington and other services, and 

 many queries from individuals have been answered. The rendering 

 of such services in Washington to scholars at a distance is the more 

 necessary and the more useful, because of the continued neglect of 

 Congress to provide in Washington a suitable National archive build- 

 ing, without which it is impossible that the rich materials for history 

 contained in the Nation's capital should be much other than a trackless 

 wilderness, from which students remote from Washington can not hope 

 to derive much benefit except through the mediation of such an organ- 

 ization as the staff of this Department, necessarily more familiar with 

 the ground. 



The Department has also gladly made itself useful to historical 

 inquirers in procuring transcripts from foreign archives, especially, this 

 last year, in the cases of Seville and Rome. 



In the matter of the transcripts made in Seville for the Carnegie 

 Institution by the late Dr. Adolph F. Bandeher, much progress has 

 been made by Dr. Hackett and his assistants, though the task is not 

 yet completed. A year ago all the work of copying for the printer had 

 been finished. The amount of text, after deduction of some matter 

 which had already been printed, was about 405,000 words. It hap- 

 pened that certain documents in the Peabody Museum at Cambridge, 

 certain others in the Ayer Collection in the Newberry Library at 

 Chicago, and a group from the Bancroft Library in the possession of 

 the University of California would helpfully supply gaps in the various 

 series of documents transcribed by Dr. and Mrs. Bandelier. The 

 addition of a moderate number of these was accordingly authorized. 

 The respective custodians of these collections kindly permitted the 

 desired papers to be transcribed. The total amount of text has thus 

 been raised to about 460,000 words, enough to make two volumes of the 



