convenience of the public service. This is in the nature of things. A central office, in which papers from all departments of the Government are lodged after they have passed out of current use, examined, classified, and filed by a staff familiar with their contents, need only be brought into use to become indispensably serviceable in the carrying on of public business; but in addition, the archivist, knowing the contents of the documents in his custody, is able to direct and help in a manner that can not otherwise be done, that portion of the public interested in the information contained in the Government archives.

Notwithstanding the completeness and compactness of the field I have briefly sketched as a logical and correct one for the purposes of a State record office, it is nevertheless equally obvious that Government records alone do not nor can embrace all the archives properly so called of a State or Province. When, therefore, I was asked, eight years ago, to organize a bureau of archives for Ontario, I laid out a much wider plan than that I have referred to, with, however, the State record office always as the central idea. The bureau is therefore double barreled; it draws from the pigeonholes of the departments, and it collects outside material that may throw light on the settlement and development of the Province of Ontario, the source of which is often far afield. For instance, the Province of Quebec (including Ontario), up to 1774 included all to the south and west as far as St. Louis and the Mississippi, and of course, what became in 1791 Upper Canada. The British régime is touched by the French and the French by the Indian.

In carrying out this plan the bureau aims at the collection of documents having, in the widest sense, a bearing upon the political or social history of Ontario, and upon its agricultural, industrial, commercial, and financial development; the collection of municipal, school, and church records; the collection and preservation of pamphlets, maps, charts, manuscripts, papers, regimental muster rolls, etc., bearing on its past or present history; the collection and preservation of facts illustrative of the early settlements, pioneer experience, customs, mode of living, prices, wages, boundaries, areas cultivated, homes, etc.; the collection and preservation of correspondence, letters from and to settlers, documents in private hands pertaining to public and social affairs, etc., reports of local events and historic incidents in the family or public life; the rescuing from oblivion of the memory of the pioneer settlers, the obtaining and preserving narratives of their early exploits, and of the part they took in opening up the country for occupation; and the bureau cooperates with the historical societies of Ontario and societies kindred to them, helping to consolidate and classify their work, and as far as practicable to direct local effort on given lines.

Within this scope the following plan of work has been adopted: To divide the history of Ontario until the confederation of the Provinces in 1867 into its political periods, arranging the material secured in chronological order, and giving each period a series of reports. Thus the work has been carried on in all the divisions simultaneously, and when sufficient material has accumulated in any one of them, it has been utilized by the publication of documents without undue delay. From confederation onward, the larger quantity of material to be dealt with, and the probable absence of sweeping constitutional changes to mark eras, suggested a chronological rather than a political basis of division. The periods are:

1. To the close of the French régime, or the period of French discovery, 1763.

2. To the organization of the Province of Upper Canada, 1791.

3. To the legislative union of Upper and Lower Canada, 1841.

4. To confederation, 1867.

5. To the end of the nineteenth century, 1900.