the Library previous to 1872. These subject-indexes are intended to be a substitute for the expensive full title alphabetical catalogues by authors' names. A similar Subject-Index was published in 1883, of the elementary works and reports in the Law Library, much more elaborate than previous indexes of that department.

The annual appropriation for the purchase of books for the Library has been gradually increased from the small sum of $500, until, at the present time, it amounts to $5,000 a year. At various times during the last fifty years, the Legislature has also made extra and specific appropriations, for the purpose of purchasing books or manuscripts so costly, that it was not deemed expedient that they should be purchased with the money of the annual appropriation. Of the annual appropriation of from $2,500 to $4,000 for the purchase of books from 1850 to 1880, it is estimated that one year with another $1,000 has been used for purchases in the Law Department, and the remainder for purchases in all the other branches of human knowledge.

The character of the Library results, for the most part, from the special aims pursued by the Trustees in developing it. Their earliest purchases were largely for the Law Department, which was regarded as of the most practical importance, and they have continued to the present time to purchase all the works essential for it, for the use of the members of the Courts meeting at the Capitol. A Select Committee of the Trustees, in 1879, reports as the result, that the Law Department" is believed to be nearly, if not quite complete in its collection of Law Reports of the Federal Courts of the United States, of the highest Courts of the several States and of Great Britain, as well as of the Statutes of the several States." It aims also to contain, the committee says, "all really standard elementary works touching all departments of Municipal Law within Great Britain and the United States, together with a reasonable supply of all Digests, Books of Practice and Hand-books of like character," the leading authorities upon subjects of International and Ecclesiastical Law, and the Laws of the modern Continental Nations. Medical Jurisprudence has been largely provided for from the library of Dr. T. R. Beck, who was for fifteen years Secretary of the Board of Re gents of the University, devoted to the interests of the Library, and author of a great work on the subject. The collection of the Statute Law and State Papers of Great Britain, Canada, and the United States, embraces upward of twelve thousand volumes. It also has been the custom to preserve in the Law Department the Journals

and Documents of Congress and the States of the Union, as complete as they can be obtained from the beginning, with the Journals and Sessional Papers of the Parliament of Great Britain, and the Par liaments of her Colonies, especially of Canada. Of the Sessional Papers of the British Parliament there are on the shelves one thousand and three hundred folio volumes, from the years 1803 to 1832, 1844 to 1851, and from 1869 to the present time. The American State Papers number eight thousand volumes.

As regards the character of the remainder of the Library, the Trustees, before and since the Regents of the University took charge of it, have always aimed, as is manifest from their frequent declarations in their annual reports, to enlarge it with works pertaining to American History, to Political and Social Economy, to Statistics, and to topics of Legislation. The first year of service of the present Board of Trustees was inaugurated by the receipt of the second collection of books on American History, made by David B. Warden, amounting to two thousand two hundred volumes. It had been purchased by the Legislature at their request by an appropriation of $4,000. The Trustees, in the report of the Select Committee of 1879, express their opinion of the importance of continuing to develop the Library principally in these directions, in the following language: "Whatever pertains to the Science of Government, in its broadest sense, has a special place in a Library designed for the aid of those who are to administer the Government. And in a State Library, whatever illustrates the history, character, resources and development of the State, past, present and future, should be the subject of collection and preservation." "To make the Library encyclopedic or universal is simply out of the question." No appropriation, they say, likely to be obtained from the Legislature, would suffice the expenditure for the purchase of books and the maintaining of the Library.

The result of building up a Library with such purposes is, that at the present day it is one of the most extensive and best supplied with works on American History in the country; and with the direction given to the aims of the Library Committee by the decision of the Trustees, it is likely to become proportionately stronger in the future than in the past, in books tending to illustrate the History of this State, of the Nation, and of the New World. Its present relative completeness may be inferred from its condition in one branch of research. Of the two hundred and sixty one volumes quoted by Durrie in his " Index to American Genealogies, contained in Town

Histories," the State Library contains two hundred and fifty-eight. As an important pendant to American history, the Library is liberally supplied with works on the History of Great Britain and Ireland, and the History of Europe generally.

The State appropriated, for a considerable number of years, from $400 to $600 a year for the purpose of carrying out M. Vattemare's system of an international exchange with foreign States of the volumes of laws, journals, documents, historical and scientific publications printed by the State of New York. The appropriation ceased to be made soon after the death of M. Vattemare, in 1864. Many thousands of volumes of State Papers and miscellaneous works were added to the Library by this method, chiefly in foreign languages. It did not tend, in any great degree, to build up the Library in the direction intended to be given to it by the Trustees. Besides the in crease of the Library by exchanges with the States of the Union and Canada, amounting to about four hundred volumes a year, nearly an equal number are received by exchange and donation from other sources, societies and individuals in this country and in Europe. The two largest collections of books given to the Library since its foundation are the publications of the Commissioner of British Patents, amounting at the present time to more than three thousand volumes; and the Library of the Hon. Harmanus Bleecker, of Albany, of about two thousand volumes. The Library now contains over one hundred and twenty-four thousand volumes, including those in the Law Department, which number about thirty-six thousand.

Proba

The annual increase of the Library for the last twenty years has been nearly three thousand volumes a year, on an average. bly with the removal of the books before long to a new home, the sight of the empty shelves will impress a feeling of the need of larger appropriation.

The character of the Library may be indicated, in a manner to interest many minds, by the mention of some of the more remarkable treasures collected in it. There may be enumerated in its department of Manuscripts:

1. Twenty-eight folio volumes of the papers of Sir William Johnson, from 1733 to 1774, with a Calendar and a subject-index of seventy thousand references.

2. The Papers of Governor George Clinton, from 1763 to 1800, in thirty-four volumes folio, which the IIon. George W. Clinton is now engaged in indexing and annotating.

3. A volume containing autograph letters or documents from all of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence.

4. The Papers from the traitor Arnold, found upon Major John André at the time he was captured, in 1780.

5. Memorials to the number of sixteen, of George Washington, among them being a Survey of Land made by him as County Sur veyor, when but seventeen years old, in 1749; his Surveying Instruments, Watch-seals and Chain, his Inauguration Sword and the first draught of the Farewell Address May, 1796.

6. The grant on parchment from Charles II, in 1664, to his brother James, Duke of York and Albany, of the territory embracing New York.

7. The Emancipation Proclamation of September, 1862, in the handwriting of Abraham Lincoln.

8. Eight boxes, containing from thirty to forty thousand papers. called the "Stevens Vermont Manuscripts," as yet unassorted and unbound, referring to the early history of New England and New York. After the transfer of the Library to the New Capitol, those manuscript volumes in the offices of the Secretary of State that have no longer more than a historical value are by a late law to be deposited on the shelves of the State Library. They number several hundred volumes. The State Library possesses also the returns of the Marshals of the Census of the State for 1865 and 1875, containing the names and ages of all the inhabitants of the State, and bound in about one hundred and ten folio volumes for each series.

1

Among the printed books, those of interest, which may be mentioned, are: 1. As many as thirty-five volumes printed before the year A. D. 1500, such as the works of Thomas Aquinas, printed at Rome in 1470, in two volumes folio.

2. The publications of all the American Historical Societies.

3. Publications of Learned and Scientific Societies in America and Great Britain, such as the American Academy, American Philosophical Society, Antiquarian Society of London, Palæontographical Society, Royal Society, Zoological Society.

4. Publications of private printing clubs and societies, such as the Bradford, Camden, English Historical, Maitland, Ballad, Shakespeare, Percy, Spottiswoode, Hanserd Knollys and Woodrow.

5. Collections of eulogies on deceased Presidents: on Washing ton, 150; on Harrison, 60; on Lincoln, 205; on Garfield, 373. 'This transfer has recently been made but the arrangement has not been per fected.

FB. H

6. A collection of works on Bibliography and Typography, consisting of more than two thousand volumes, one thousand of which were bought from Mr. Joel Munsell by a special appropriation.

7. A nearly complete collection of all the Genealogies of American families that have been published to 1883.

8 There has been placed on the shelves lately a series of Gaine's New York Register and Almanac, covering forty-four years, from 1756 to 1804, a remarkable set

9. The Journals and Resolutions of the Netherlands from 1524 to 1797; the Secret Resolutions, from 1651 to 1795, in all two hundred and sixty volumes folio, some of which are copies in manuscript, on account of the scarcity of complete copies. These were received from the Government of the Netherlands, and are in the Law Department.

Without enumerating any more of the valuable collection of books in the library, or pointing out exceptionally rare books, we would advert to the portfolios of maps of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which are exceedingly valuable for the period of the Revolutionary War. The Library possesses also several cases filled with Coins and Medals, Paper Money of the Colonies and the States, Paintings of Portraits of several of the Governors of the State, and of other eminent citizens.

The Library, from its foundation in 1818, was kept in a room occupying a portion of two stories of the old Capitol, on the north side. In 1854 it was removed to an edifice especially constructed for the purpose, west of the old Capitol, but connected with it by a corridor of two stories. It was two stories high, one hundred and fourteen feet long by forty-eight feet wide. Its principal façade was on State street, constructed of red sandstone, like the old Capitol as was that on the north end. The Law Department was on the ground floor, and the general department on the second floor. The upper hall was sufficiently high to admit of galleries on both sides, with alcoves in them, as upon the main floor. At the time when this edifice was constructed the Legislature prescribed very definite limitations regarding its size, lest it should be made unnecessarily large; yet not ten years elapsed before its shelves were full. Ample space is designed for the Library in the new Capitol into apart ments in which it has already been temporarily removed.

Under the Laws of the State, sustained by the rules adopted by the Trustees, the Library is treated primarily as a Reference-Library. The greater part of the books are such as do not leave the Capitol;