TheMorganReport:General disclaimer
This is a work in progress.
As you can see from the scanned images, the Morgan Report included tables, centering, small caps, footnotes, italics, and all manner of complex formatting.
In order to improve readability, we have added wiki markup to closely follow the format of the original document, including creating sections and sub-sections that seemed to follow the intended outline of the document. It is not an exact representation, but is a balance between readability and fidelity.
All typographical errors in the original, including misspellings and inconsistent punctuation, are preserved.
The original scans done with FineReader 8.0 had about an 95% accuracy rate, requiring manual proofreading for accuracy as well as formatting.
Considerable care was taken to make sure that the text contained in this on-line version is an accurate transcription of the text printed in the original report. Even more care was taken with regard to place names, because of current interest in preserving Hawaiian language and the cultural significance of various places. It must be noted that the original Morgan report occasionally had errors in the spelling of place names; or that place-names as reported in 1894 might appear to us today to be entirely incorrect. It is unknown whether such differences from modern usage were caused by Morgan report writers who were unfamiliar with Hawaiian language, or whether those differences accurately represented the usages of 1894. The editors of this on-line version of the Morgan report have always tried to transcribe place-names exactly as they appear in the original report, regardless of apparently obvious errors. For example, on page 435 we find the island now known as Kaho'olawe called by the name "Kahulaui" or also "Tahurowa." The islet now known as Lehua is twice called "Lenua", even though the report includes the English designation of "Egg Island" ("hua" is the word for "egg"). What is now called the Kalawao peninsula of Moloka'i (where the leper colony was established) is referred to on page 434 as "Kalanao" but then on page 437 is called by the modern spelling "Kalawao."
The editors of this on-line edition of the Morgan report have tried hard to transcribe the report as it was actually written rather than as we think it should have been written. Throughout the Morgan report, historians and linguists might find place-name issues worthy of research.