Produced by James Wright and the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This book was created from images of public domain material made available by the University of Toronto Libraries (http://link.library.utoronto.ca/booksonline/).) THE ONTARIO ARCHIVES: SCOPE OF ITS OPERATIONS (Paper read at the twenty-seventh annual meeting of the American Historical Association, held at Buffalo, N. Y., December 27-30, 1911) BY ALEXANDER FRASER LL. D., LITT. D., F. S. A., SCOT. EDIN. Reprinted from the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1911, pages 353-362 WASHINGTON 1913 THE ONTARIO ARCHIVES. By ALEXANDER FRASER, Provincial Archivist. The line of demarcation between the Canadian or Dominion archives and the Ontario or other provincial archives is somewhat similar to that between the Federal and State archives in the United States. It consists with the scope of the jurisdiction of the Dominion or major commonwealth, and the narrower or minor jurisdiction of the Province. This constitutes a clearly defined boundary within which both work without conflict or overlapping of interests. Our public charter is an imperial statute entitled the British North America act, and to-day, when there are nine fully constituted, autonomous Provinces within the Dominion of Canada, it is interesting to recall that when the British North America act became law in 1867 the subtitle set forth that it was "An act for the union of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and the government thereof; and for purposes connected therewith."