Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Letters of Transmittal Virginia State Library, November 11, 1908. The Library Board of the Virginia State Library: Gentlemen: I have the honor to transmit herewith the special report of the archivist of the Virginia State library for the year ended October 31, 1908. It consists of abstracts of a portion of the legislative petitions filed in the State librarythose from the counties of Accomac, Albemarle, Alexandria, Alle- ghany, Amelia, Amherst, Appomattox, Augusta, Barbour, Bath, and Bedford. The publication of the report will further the purpose of exhibiting to the public the character of work done during the year in the department of archives and history, and of bringing to the attention of students the wealth of historical material deposited in this library. Very respectfully, H. R. McILWAINE, State Librarian. Dr. H. R. Mcilwaine, Librarian. Dear Sir: I beg herewith to submit the special report of the department of archives and history for 1908, which contains a calendar of abstracts of petitions presented to the Legislature, arranged by counties, and including the papers from Accomac to Bedford. Yours very truly, H. J. BCKENRODB, Archivist. chapter{Section 4Report The issue of a calendar of abstracts of the manuscripts in the Virginia State library was one of the first plans made by the department of archives and history when it was regularly formed in 1906. Much preliminary arrangement was necessary before the work of calendar-making could be begun, as it was determined to change the methods of preserving and classifying the manuscripts then in vogue in the library. Some thousands of papers were taken from their boxes, and were pressed and put in filing cases, where they are accessible to the public. In filing this collection of documents, a...