built by the curate of Rodriguez in Xul, and are of a more modern construction. Mr. E. Ancona and other historians conjecture that the frequent migrations of the Mayas and most of the wars the different tribes waged against each other were caused by the want of that element.

The process by which water has been hauled from the bowels of the earth like that of all new countries in their evolutions towards progress, is the same one with some slight difference. In the first place we ought perhaps, to mention the primitive well, older than Jacob, as we learn among other sources from the beautiful story of the woman of Samaria, in which the traditional bucket and rope are used. When the wants are greater and the depth of the well is considerable, they have a horse to haul out the buckets; and when the requirements are greater still, as those of an hacienda, the noria, a Moorish apparatus, is needed. This noria is a rudimentary, rough, wooden machine, set over the mouth of the well, the horizontal section of which is about eight feet by three, made up of two wheels, the vertical one has a cage for a felley formed by arms that engage with those of the horizontal wheel, and drive it, while a string of buckets of different kind of material, such as leather, the bark of trees, or tin, hung over the felley of the horizontal wheel, follows the rotation of both of them, imparted by a lever attached to the top of the hub of the vertical wheel, and pulled by a horse, makes them go round. the well and carries the water out. This noria gives good service where there are no pumps and it only wants a horse to pull the lever.

Haciendas that have a population of one hundred souls and some two hundred head of cattle and horses only need one. Uayalceh, where they have about a thousand animals to water and a population of over one thousand, more than half of whom go to get their supply there, have two norias constantly at work, and that is all they want. For the last forty years, steam pumps are found in almost all

haciendas of any importance, and for the last ten or fifteen years, wind mills of which there was only one in the country in 1882, number now over twelve hundred in Merida alone, and their use extends rapidly.

I beg your pardon, gentlemen, for bringing these remarks to an end by saying a few words in favor of my country, impelled by the love that all men feel for their native land. In spite of the obstacles and difficulties I have mentioned, and perhaps owing to these very causes, the state of Yucatan, with a population of 315,000 inhabitants, thinly spread over an extensive territory, has accomplished a fair share of work in the way of progress. Yellow fever has been almost completely expelled from its borders. Education has been promoted as much as its financial conditions allow. With a budget of $2,653,996, Mexican money, there are 343 public schools, both day and evening, paid by the State treasury at an expense of $291,052. There are also a large number of boys' and girls' private schools, besides those paid for by the municipalities. The public schools of Merida number thirty-five. With the increased budget now in preparation for the next year, those numbers are to be increased. A model school house for those of that city was inaugurated last September at a cost of $100,000 M. c., and appropriate buildings for the same purpose are to be erected in other localities. Benevolent institutions have strongly enlisted public attention, and next January the President of the Republic is to inaugurate among other works, an Insane Asylum and a great Hospital that has twenty-eight separate pavilions, built and furnished in accordance with the latest requisites of medical science. A portion of the streets of Merida have been paved with bricks, but generally with asphalt, not only the central ones, but also some in the suburbs. Electric lights began to be used in 1884. Our means of communication have been improved, and there are now six different railroad lines with an aggregate length of over 550 miles; and tram

ways for public and private use are very numerous and of a very considerable aggregate length. The first telegraph line was laid in 1865. Now they run from Merida to Campeche and to all the chief towns, to the frontiers of the State and to Mexico by the intermission of cable. The telephone is very widely used. Besides the two lines owned by two companies, there are many private lines. The railroads of course have their own telegraph and telephone service. A line of meteorological observatories has been established over the whole state with a full equipment of the most modern instruments. The central station is in Merida, and there is one in the chief towns of the other districts. 986,655,683 kilogrammes of merchandise were imported in the year 1903 from foreign ports to the amount of $7,011,553, and 67,377,714 kilogrammes worth $18,729,644 were imported from domestic ports. During that year the exports amounted to 100,883,683 kilogrammes worth $37,497,169, in which numbers hemp counts for 93,058,666 kilogrammes worth $33,331,157 Mexican money. In 1904 we exported 606,008 bales of hemp, weighing 97,205,649 kilogrammes on board 167 steamers, which hemp was estimated at the value of $32,022,563. Of those 606,008 bales, 509,634 weighing 81,093,418 kilogrammes were exported to the United States. Finally a concession for the water supply of the city of Merida has been granted to an American company that has already begun work.

THE JACKSON AND VAN BUREN

PAPERS.

BY WILLIAM MAC DONALD.

I HAVE lately had occasion to examine the papers of Jackson and Van Buren in the Library of Congress, and the president of this Society adjudged that some remarks about those collections would be appropriate for this meeting.

The Jackson papers are known as the Montgomery Blair collection. They were presented to the Library in 1903 by the family of Montgomery Blair, who received them from the Jackson heirs. I do not know entirely the history of the Jackson papers, but enough to suggest that it is an interesting one. I remember the late Senator Hoar saying a few years ago, speaking of these papers, that when he was a member of the Senate Committee on the Library, there were brought to the rooms of the Committee at the Capitol two trunks, said to contain the papers of Andrew Jackson. The trunks had been removed temporarily from a building in Washington in which they had been stored for some time, and the custodians, being in doubt as to the safest disposition to make of them, had placed them temporarily in the Capitol in the custody of the Senate Library Committee, or some member of it. The Senator told how he opened one of the trunks, and discovered that the papers were neatly arranged in bundles; and having a curiosity to examine some of them, he took up the one lying on top, and read, endorsed in Jackson's handwriting upon the outside of it, "General Pakenham's plan of the battle of New Orleans, picked up on the field.”

Mr. Worthington C. Ford, custodian of the manuscripts

in the Library, is my authority for saying that the Jackson papers were turned over by Jackson himself to Amos Kendall, Postmaster-General in Jackson's administration, to be used in the preparation of a biography of Jackson. From those papers Kendall selected such as he desired to use, but the whole collection in his hands was destroyed in a fire which consumed Kendall's library.

The Jackson collection is very large, extending to a great many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of papers. At the time I examined it, somewhat less than a year ago, the papers had not been calendared, although a calendar was in process of preparation; and the papers were roughly classified by years, arranged in the admirable style with which everyone is familiar, in the Library.

The Van Buren collection is also very extensive. It is, however, only one of two existing collections of Van Buren's papers; another still remains in private hands. This one came to the Library through Mrs. Thompson Van Buren. Neither this collection nor the one still in private hands was used by Mr. Shepard, the author of the biography of Van Buren in the American Statesmen Series. The collection which is still in private hands, I understand is inaccessible to students. It is to be hoped that it will eventually pass into the hands of the Library.

The most important portion of both collections is the correspondence. The Jackson papers are evidently fragmentary, there being large gaps in the whole collection. The Van Buren collection is more orderly, having apparently been selected with care by Van Buren himself from the papers he desired to preserve. Of the two collections, the Van Buren collection is far the richer, although there are many Jackson letters in the Van Buren collection and some Van Buren letters in the Jackson collection. The Van Buren collection contains in the neighborhood of three hundred letters, many of them confidential, between Jackson and Van Buren.