Ontario, bordering on Lake Erie and the Detroit River, containing particulars of grants of land before 1792, schedules, regulations, description lists of grantees, and surveys, and a mass of data connected with Indian rights and the settlement of land generally. It has been of value in land-title lawsuits, etc., and extends to more than 500 pages.

Combining this period with the succeeding one, we have collected the proclamations by the Crown from 1763 to 1840 and issued them in a volume, the necessity of which has been felt, as may be understood when it is stated that no such collection had ever been made before, though these proclamations are of public use in an endless variety of business.

Under our third division the narrower political history of our Province begins, the introduction of constitutional government—the work of the legislature, some of whose early records are lost, the outbreak of the War of 1812, the progress of settlement, and the development of municipal and commercial institutions, the restiveness leading to the rising of 1837, and the concessions made to responsible government. Here a great deal of archival work has been already accomplished. The journals of the proceedings of the legislature of Upper Canada from 1792 to 1818, so far as we have been able to find them, have been published and the series will be issued to the year 1824, from which year printed copies are in existence. The journals of the legislative council concurrent with those of the legislative assembly down to 1816 have also been published, and one volume in each series, now in the press, will complete the work. These journals are simply indispensable, being the original evidence of all our legislation. Our constitutional development and the history of our legislature can not be studied or understood without them. I may be pardoned should I refer particularly to one of many interesting questions dealt with in the closing years of the eighteenth century as shown in these journals. The legislative assembly, following the rule of the Imperial House of Commons, claimed the power of the purse, and objected to their supply bill being amended by the legislative council or upper house. A deadlock ensued; neither side would budge from its position; a conference of both houses was held and the assembly won on the understanding that the question would be referred to the law officers of the Crown in Britain for future guidance. This was accordingly done and the right claimed by the assembly or lower house was conceded to it. Thus was solved amicably for Canada at the small hamlet of Newark, on the banks of the Niagara, a constitutional principle which recently shook the United Kingdom and produced a serious and radical constitutional crisis, in which once more the Commons vindicated their supremacy in questions of national finance.

The records of the first Court of Common Pleas for Upper Canada, with valuable annotations and historical notes, are being prepared for the press.

In this division we have in hand among other things the preparation of a domesday book for the Province. Our plan, which has made substantial progress, is to cover all our settlement of Crown lands from 1783 to 1900 by townships, giving each grantee a description, and, for the purpose of reference, a number. Succeeding volumes will furnish memoirs, notes, and statistical data of a special character bearing on the grantees and on their settlements. In this connection we are collecting and rapidly accumulating local material which will be drawn upon for this work. This I consider one of the biggest undertakings planned by the bureau, which occupy much time to bring it to completion, but when completed will be a work of reference of permanent use to our historical investigators.

We are also collecting papers and documents pertaining to the political history of Ontario that ought to be preserved in permanent