Relation of the Federal Govei'nment to Research 



237 



conserved; and prints (both contact and enlarged) 

 from the master negatives are avaihible to any one by 

 purchase or through interlibrar}* loan. Even scholars 

 abroad take advantage of these facilities. 



A project of the Modern Language Association for 

 the acquisition of facsimiles of literary texts is another 

 development of reproduction. To date 423 such texts 

 have been reproduced. They are deposited in the Li- 

 brary of Congress and administered by the Division. 

 The administration includes the loan of them to a scholar 

 at a distance. Being facsimiles they are available for 

 loan though the originals might not be. 



The annual reports of the Division enumerate gifts 

 of material, e. g., the Alexander H. Stephens papers, 

 purchased and given to the Library last year by Mr. 

 Bernard M. Baruch. The gift of Secretary Hamilton 

 Fish's papers by his grandson, Congressman Hamilton 

 Fish, has come to the Division this year. An out- 

 standing gift of former years is the Edward S. Hark- 

 ness Collection of documentary material bearing upon 

 the Spanish conquests of Mexico and Peru which raises 

 the curtain on the business, economic, and social affairs 

 of the time. This collection has been specially cal- 

 endared. 



The collections have become so extensive that it has 

 been impossible to provide detailed calendars and in- 

 dexes for all. However, the arrangement of the stack 

 of the Division is along the simplest lines, as is also 

 that of the several collections (the chronological order 

 within series) ; and it is easy with the aid of The 

 Handhooh of ManuscHpts in the Library of Congress 

 (1918), Dr. C. "VV. Garrison's List . . . to July 1931 

 (reprinted from the Annual Report of the American 

 Historical Association for 1930), the annual reports of 

 the Division in the Librarian's annual reports, of the 

 calendars which have been published, and of the manu- 

 script lists and indexes in the Division to arrive at 

 what is wanted. Many inquiries are answered by mail 

 and even by telephone — in cases where the amount of 

 search involved is not great. 



The Division of Maps 



In the year 1802, when its first catalogue was printed, 

 the Library of Congress possessed six atlases and seven 

 maps. In July 1937 the collection had come to encom- 

 pass 1,376,801 maps and related drawings, 11,684 at- 

 lases, and 4.509 geographical books and pamphlets 

 which were in the custody of the Division of Maps. 

 The great wealth of the national library's cartographic 

 collection lies in the field of American maps. Aside 

 from their use in geograpliical and historical research 

 and in the compilation of new maps these collections 

 have been used extensively by attorneys in prepai-ing 

 for litigation in the Supreme Court of the United 



States in such cases as those between Michigan and 

 Wisconsin, Delaware and New Jersey, Virginia and the 

 District of Columbia, Wisconsin and Minnesota, New 

 Hampshire and Vermont, Oklahoma and Texas, New 

 Mexico and Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee, and be- 

 tween the States on the Great Lakes and the Sanitary 

 District of Chicago; and also in constant use in litiga- 

 tion in the lower courts. Tlic collection is also suffi- 

 ciently rich in foreign maps to have been extensively 

 used in the boundary cases involving the frontiers be- 

 tween Canada and Labrador, Canada and Alaska, Gua- 

 temala and Honduras, Venezuela and British Guiana, 

 Bolivia and Paraguay, Chile and Peru, Turkey and 

 Iraq, and Ecuador and Peru. Its foreign maps and 

 atlases have frequently been consulted by scholarly in- 

 vestigators from all parts of tlie world. 



The map treasures which the Library of Congress 

 has received include many outstanding collections such 

 as the Rochambeau Collection, the Faden Collection, 

 the Howe Collection, the Harrisse Collection, the Low- 

 ery Collection, the Kohl Collection, the Fillmore Col- 

 lection, the Bliss Collection, the Mellon Collection, 92 

 editions of Ptolemy's geography, the atlases of Ortelius 

 (68 editions), Blaeu (27 editions in 82 volumes), Mer- 

 cator (37 editions), 24 Portolan charts, 7 manuscript 

 maps made or annotated by George Washington, 19 

 copies of the Atlantic Neptune (1775-1781) including 

 1,369 plates of charts and views, an original manu- 

 script copy of Pierre Charles I'Enfant's plan of the 

 City of Washington (1791), I'Enfant's "map of doted 

 lines" (Aug. 19, 1791), a manuscript map of parts of 

 New England and Canada made by Samuel de Champ- 

 plain (1608), a manuscript map of New Amsterdam 

 made by Johannes Vingboons (1660), and 13 manu- 

 script maps attributed to Lewis and Clark. The col- 

 lection also includes originals, facsimiles, or photostats 

 of 19 editions of John Mitchell's "Map of the British 

 and French Possessions in North America" (1755- 

 1792), 24 editions of John Disturnell's "Mapa de Los 

 Estados Unidos de Mejico" (1828-1858), 15 editions 

 of John Melish's "Map of tiie United States with the 

 Contiguous British and Spanish Possessions" (1816- 

 1823), 27 editions of one or another of three versions 

 of Lewis Evans's "General Map of the Middle British 

 Colonies" (1749-1814), 14 editions of William Del 

 Isle's "Carte du Canada" (1703-1799), 11 editions of 

 John Filson's "Map of Kentucke" (1784-1794), 5 edi- 

 tions of William Darby's "Map of the State of Loui- 

 siana" (1816-1818), 8 editions of J. Calvin Smith's 

 "Map of North America" with the insert "Map of the 

 Gold Region California" (1849-1852), and many maps 

 which were made by or possessed by former Presidents 

 of the United States. 



