In his letter to Mrs. Victor, dated August 1st of that year, we get an interesting glimpse of the plan in an earlier stage. The work is to be divided, he says, somewhat in the following manner: Conquest of Darien, one volume; Conquest of Mexico, one volume; Mexico under the Viceroys, two volumes; Mexican Revolution and Modern History, one or two; Explorations Northward and the History of California, three or four; the Northwest Coast, Oregon and British Columbia together, two or three; Alaska, one. Under the head of California history was to be included somewhere the histories of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada, and the history of Oregon was likewise to include Washington, Idaho, and Montana. Oregon and British Columbia he thought could be written in a year. Not until six more years had passed was it finally recognized that natural expansion as the work proceeded would necessitate devoting to the series of history proper a number of volumes exactly double that which was then contemplated. To this series were added as a supplement an even half dozen volumes. If we find that the outline grew from that of a few volumes in 1872 to one of almost forty in 1884, and that the work expanded fourteen volumes after it had been definitely laid out, we are not at all surprised that the part of the whole which Mr. Bancroft intended to write grew relatively less as time went on, and the part assigned to others became correspondingly greater. There is some evidence to show that when writing began on the first volume of the Central American History in 1873, the director of the project actually had in mind the plan which he gives in the Literary Industries, that of writing with the aid of assistants who were to be responsible for "the study and reduction of certain minor sections" which he was to "employ" in his own writing. Thus we find, according to the information left by Nemos, that Bancroft actually wrote half of the volume, that Oak at first took out notes, and that Nemos prepared his work in the rough, leaving a considerable part of it to be rewritten. For the next volume undertaken, the first of the six on Mexico, we see that the chief was unable to prepare so much material in its final form, and rested with but two chapters completely to his credit, together with the rewriting of part of Nemos' work on the remainder. In four or five years, he expresses the determination of writing what he can himself and leaving the rest to his aids. This as we shall see amounted in the end to his doing about one seventh of the history, slightly revising the work of the other authors, often by the aid of critics in his employ, and preparing most of the material for the supplementary volumes.