102 REPORTS OF INVESTIGATIONS AND PROJECTS. 



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. Mr. Leland has prepared the annual summary of American 

 historical progress, appearing in the "Jahresberichte der Geschichtswissen- 

 schaft." The endeavor has been made to file methodically such data regard- 

 ing manuscript materials for American history, preserved in Washington or 

 elsewhere, as have come to hand. Historical societies have been aided in 

 the quest for historical materials in Washington. Mention may be made of 

 the American Antiquarian Society, in the instance named above, of the Michi- 

 gan Pioneer and Historical Society, which continues its copying of papers 

 of Henry R. Schoolcraft ; of the Buffalo Historical vSociety, which has 

 been helped in its endeavors to prepare an edition of the writings and cor- 

 respondence of President Millard Fillmore, and of the State Historical 

 Society of Wisconsin, and others, in minor searches. Mr, Leland is also 

 under instruction to meet, so far as is practicable, the desires of certain 

 historical societies for information from the archives of Paris relating to 

 their respective States. 



A considerable amount of the time of the stafif is consumed in hunting 

 in Washington libraries and archives for the answers to questions sent in 

 by individuals. The number of such must, in the course of the year, have 

 amounted to some figure between loo and 200. But the work is a legitimate 

 part of our duty and not the least important. Discrimination must of course 

 be exercised, and little time can rightly be spent in answering questions which 

 have no one's benefit in view but that of the writer, or have no historical 

 importance. But, as the notion of establishing a clearing-house for the 

 historical profession had certainly its part in the locating of this Depart- 

 ment in Washington, and as our fortunate relations to its archives and 

 libraries, particularly to the ever-helpful Library of Congress, enable our 

 staff to increase the efficiency of remote historical workers who are aiming 

 to advance our science, it is proper and pleasant for us to spend some of our 

 time in assisting them. The Department itself is under frequent obligations 

 to these same historical scholars or to others at a distance. 



Under an appropriation for small grants to scholars who need to visit 

 Washington for historical research, such aid has been rendered to three 

 persons : Dean W. H. Isely, of Fairmount College, in Kansas, engaged in 

 researches into the history of the civil troubles in Kansas in the period 

 before the Civil War ; Prof. J. C. Ballagh, of the Johns Hopkins University, 

 engaged in collecting materials for an edition of the correspondence of 

 Richard Plenry Lee, and Prof. L J. Cox, of the University of Cincinnati, 

 engaged in studying the history of the southwestern boundary of the United 

 States. They are experienced historical workers and their subjects are im- 

 portant. 



