ARCHIVIST OF THE HALL OF RECORDS 17

furnished to correspondents in forty-five states, the District of
Columbia, and six foreign countries. Of the total number of
letters sent, 1,007, a little over one-half had to do with genealogi-
cal matters; the rest were devoted to historical, legal, and archival
subjects. Eighty letters were addressed to Maryland governmen-
tal agencies in reply to inquiries dealing with the care of records.
During the course of the year, governmental agencies, both state
and local, began to ask many of their questions over the tele-
phone. In the past no account has been kept of this form of cir-
culation, but in the fiscal year 1948 such a record will be kept
and the results given to you in the annual report for that year.

The total number of letters written in response to inquiries
having to do with the records in our custody is given below for
the last three years:

Fiscal Year 1945........... 711

Fiscal Year 1946........... 814

Fiscal Year 1947...........1,007

AIDS TO RESEARCH

In spite of the handicaps imposed by the inexperience of
those members of our staff who are normally engaged in in-
dexing, very good progress was made in this work. We were
fortunate, too, in acquiring from the Legislative Reference de-
partment the handwritten first cards of an index to Maryland
Laws for a period of over one hundred years. Finally, we were
able to add to our growing collection of County Deed Indexes
those of Dorchester and Queen Anne's Counties by photostating
the originals. We are especially grateful to the Judges and Clerks
of Court of these Eastern Shore Counties for their kindness in
permitting the removal of these much-used indexes from the
vaults of the several courthouses.

In my last annual report to you I recorded as complete the
fourth and fifth publications of the Hall of Records Commission.
Unfortunately, I did not anticipate the delays in printing which