will refuse to allow our early records to be kept longer in the seclusion of musty manuscripts and in exposure to decay and destruction.
As one result of our observation and examination of this subject we are able to state confidently that the present official custodians have guarded the public archives with jealous care, and yet, notwithstanding all that can be done in the way of precaution on their part, the defacement of constant use and the possibility of unforeseen accident convince us that a certainty of perpetuating the contents of these early records comes only from the multiplication of copies by publication.
The dangers to which we refer are those to which all public books and papers existing in single manuscript originals are subject from the inevitable effects of time and the possibility of accident.
Eventually the matter of a general index to the whole work will require consideration. The index in each one of the first ten volumes is very incomplete. Investigators find it necessary to search the text for the contents of the volumes, when anything of detail is wanted,-anything beyond what is matter of very general reference. The index work in the eight subsequent volumes is very complete and satisfactory. Besides a general prefatory table of contents, we have an index of names of places and persons in each book. Whether upon the completion of the entire work contemplated a general index should be prepared and published, or whether a separate index of the Bouton volumes is desirable, are questions not now urgent. If the journals and other papers published by him in an incomplete form should be given in full hereafter in the series, the publication of a general index would best be deferred. Meantime the index cards prepared and used by the compiler in the current volumes should be preserved for use in any general index that may possibly be authorized in the future.
The original report, of which this is a copy except as to some immaterial changes in phraseology, was adopted by the executive council to which it was submitted, in May, 1889.