Rome for builders of important structures to take their build ing materials from the Colosseum without any interference on the part of the city authorities. Until the Colosseum was finally made safe by law from further destruction, practically every important new building in Rome contained part of it. Similarly} the Lincoln docu ments gathered and prepared by William H. Herndon in the sixties of the last century have been used for seventy years as the foundation stones Of later biographies. Every biographer from that day to this has either consulted Herndon in person or relied on letters or writings left by him.