200 REPORTS ON INVESTIGATIONS AND PROJEICTS. 



SPECIAL PLANS FOR 1907. 

 Reports, Aids, and Guides. 



Besides the maintenance of those varieties of work which have now become 

 established routine to the department, the year 1907 ought, without much 

 doubt, in view of the preparations described above, to see the issue of four 

 publications : The amplified edition of the Guide to the Archives at Washing- 

 ton, and the guides to the materials for American history in the archives of 

 Cuba, Great Britain (to 1783), and Spain. The last-named volume can with- 

 out difficulty contain our notes of manuscript transcripts and printed docu- 

 ments. The transcripts and printed documents from English archives are 

 so numerous as to require that our notes on them be published separately 

 from the Guide, in 1907, if possible; if not, in 1908. 



The work most needed in respect to the Washington archives is the prepa- 

 ration of an itemized calendar of the papers relating to the Territories, begin- 

 ning with the Northwest Territory. It is for this class of papers that, owing 

 to the increasing activity of historical work in the West, there is the largest 

 demand for fuller information than is given in Messrs. Van Tyne and 

 Leiand's Guide. Moreover, they are so scattered through various Depart- 

 ments and bureaus, and have so little relation to the present business of the 

 Federal Government (nearly all these Territories having now become States), 

 that no single agency of that Government will be likely to feel an especial 

 interest in the collection of information regarding them from all the deposi- 

 tories in Washington, while the cordial aid we have received in the prepara- 

 tion of the new edition of the Guide makes us confident that we shall receive 

 every needed facility in this proposed advance into the second stage of 

 exploitation of archives. During the year it may be expected that Professor 

 Allison's inventory of historical materials in Protestant religious archives 

 should be made nearly or quite ready for publication. 



As to the archives outside the United States, I desire to undertake first, 

 and in the year 1907, the exploration of the archives of France and Mexico, 

 on a plan similar to that which has been pursued in the case of England. 

 The reasons in both cases have been set forth in an earlier paragraph. 



Texts. 



The collection of European treaties and of letters of delegates to the Old 

 Congress may be expected to make large progress during the next year, the 

 former possibly reaching completion. We ought also to make a beginning 

 with some one of those series from British sources of which I described the 

 need in the article in the American Historical Review, to which reference 

 has already been made. In view of movements on foot by other organiza- 

 tions, it now appears that the one for us to undertake, one certain not to be 



