ART. 8. ] BALTIMORE COUNTY. 19

or the general index may supply the titling to such record, they
shall take and accept said index as auxiliary evidence, and shall,
if the original papers or a certified copy thereof, properly evi-
denced as of record, be produced, order and direct such original
paper or copy, as the case may be, to be recorded anew by the
clerk of the Circuit Court for said county, and shall endorse
such order on said paper, which endorsement and new record of
such paper, shall be prima facie evidence of the verity of the
record so made, and available for all purposes for which the
original record, if it had not been destroyed by fire, would have
been available in evidence.

12. In all cases where any record or paper shall be wholly
destroyed by fire, and the original or certified copy thereof can-
not be procured, it shall be the duty of the commissioners, if the
said record be found indexed, to hear and receive such other evi-
dence, if any there be within the record¹ office, either to be de-
rived from the remains of the burnt record or otherwise, and
such extrinsic evidence as the parties interested may supply, and
shall determine and adjudge in the premises, whether the said
record or paper be fully established, and if satisfied by such evi-
dence, it shall be their duty, if the party or parties grantor shall
supply a new instrument correspondent to the one destroyed by
fire, and confirmatory of the same, to accept such instrument,
and to order and direct the same to be recorded, with an endorse-
ment thereon of said order, which record and endorsement shall
secure to the party or parties concerned, all the rights, title and
interest, which was designed and intended to be vested by the
original paper or instrument of writing, as fully as if the record
thereof had not been destroyed by fire; but if for any reason,
the grantor or grantors should not supply a new or confirmatory
deed or other instrument of writing, as the case may be, corres-
pondent to the one destroyed by fire, then the said commissioners
shall execute and deliver in their capacity of commissioners, a
new and confirmatory deed or instrument of writing, under their
hands and seals, to take place of the record destroyed by fire,
and shall order and direct the same to be so endorsed and re-
corded, and such endorsement and record shall secure to the
party or parties interested, the same rights, title and interest,