nearly 4,000 letters. When the library of the Department is properly equipped, as it will eventually be, the office will be a clearing house for the State in making known its great opportunities.

We suggest that in the future the Department be instructed to issue its report in July of each year, instead of February, so that the various State Departments can comply with the Law and furnish this Bureau with all of their reports, which should be condensed and the vital facts given to the world for discussion before the Legislature meets.

We believe that during the coming year the Department will have been so readjusted that more careful and scientific investigation into the various economic propositions that come up for discussion will be made, and the reports thereon will prove of value and interest to the State.

I trust these recommendations will receive the due consideration of your Excellency and the Legislature, and in conclusion I desire to tender my thanks to the entire office force for their kindly consideration and co-operation in producing results.

MARYLAND---ITS RESOURCES.

No State in the Union is more interesting in its history to the students of American institutions than Maryland. One of the original thirteen states, its resources, advantages and enterprises were realized by the early settlers with promptness, and their development mark every epoch of American history. Lucas Vasquez D'Allon entered the Chesapeake Bay in the year of 1524, one hundred and ten years before the settlement of Maryland. This latter event, according to history, occurring on March 25, 1634, when the boundaries of St. Mary's River, in St. Mary's County, were first settled.

In 1632, June 16, King James I signed the patent which gave all that territory, and much more, now known as Maryland, to Cecilius Calvert, Baron of Baltimore, and this first Baron of Baltimore named the province Terra Mariæ, that is Maryland, in honor of Queen Henrietta Maria.

The Maryland thus patented is described in McMahon's History of Maryland" as follows: All that part of the Peninsula lying in the parts of America between the Ocean on the East and Chesapeake Bay on the West, divided from the residue thereto by a right line drawn from the promonotory or head line called Watkin's Point, situated upon the Bay · aforesaid and near the River of Weighco on the West unto the main ocean on the East, unto the part of the Bay of Delaware on the North, which lieth under the fortieth degree of latitude, where New England is terminated, and all the tract of land within the limits, to wit: Passing from said Delaware Bay in a right line running with the degree aforesaid unto the true

meridian of the first fountain of the river Potomac, thence running toward the east into the farther boundary of the said river, and following the same on the west and east into a certain place called Cinquack, situated near the mouth of said river, where it empites into aforesaid Bay of Chesapeake, and thence by the shortest line into aforesaid place or promontory called Watkin's Point.

The original boundaries of the State have been materially changed since the time the patent was granted, and a large portion of the territory east of the Delaware and north toward Philadelphia has long since been ceded to Pennsylvania and Delaware, in addition to which that portion which is known as the District of Columbia has been ceded to the National Government. Thus, Maryland territory has finally dwindled down to a line bounded on the East by the State of Delaware, on the South East by the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean, on the South and South West by the Potomac River, on the West by West Virginia, on the North by Pennsylvania, with a total area of 12,210 square miles: land surface of 9,860 square miles, and a water surface of 2,350 square miles, with an extreme width from East to West of 240 miles, and extreme length from North to South of 125 miles.

From 1763 until 1767, Messrs. Mason and Dixon, two English surveyors, worked continuously to establish the boundary lines of the State, and succeeded in progressing 244 miles west, where they were estopped by the dispute between Maryland and Virginia.

Geographically Maryland is nearly of the same nature as those States which lie to the North and South of it. It is described by the Maryland Geological Survey as being a part of the "Eastern Border Region, which stretches from the Atlantic Coast line to the crest of the Alleghany Mountains, and from its central situation offers, perhaps the most characteristic section of this broad belt." The country rises from the sea level at first gradually, and then more rapidly, until it culminates in the highland of the Western portion of the State.