During most of his life Samuel Butler carried a note-book in his pocket in which he wrote down thoughts that he wanted to preserve. After 1874, in an attempt to make his copious collection more useful and interesting, he began to revise the entries, transcribing them into a larger book, and keeping an index. For eighteen years he followed this system until his collection had grown so enormous that it was once more disorganized and hard to use; then, in 1891, he began a second thorough revision, re-editing all the notes, copying them neatly on good paper and, when enough pages had been filled, having them bound into large volumes provided with careful indexes. He used copying ink in this work or had his secretary Alfred use the typewriter, and as an insurance against total loss of the notes by fire he made a pressed copy which was kept in the rooms of his friend Henry Festing Jones. By the time of Butler's death in 1902 his notes had grown to fill six large volumes of about two hundred pages each. These volumes were bought by Mr. Carroll A. Wilson and are now in the possession of the Chapin Library at Williams College as part of the Butler collection.