his contemporaries, Jefferson traveled very little. As such, the library became his best travel guide. Even though the library went through multiple stages throughout his lifetime, in 1814 it was known that he had the single greatest private library in the United States. When the Library of Congress was consumed by fire, Jefferson persuaded the library to purchase his collection of between nine and ten thousand books in order to compensate for the lost collection. Congress accepted a portion of Jefferson's library (6,487 volumes) in 1815 for the cost of $23,950 (). The figure was obtained by calculating the number of books in addition to their dimensions, though Jefferson insisted that he would agree to any price. He remarked, "I do not know that it contains any branch of science which Congress would wish to exclude from this collection". December 1851 brought a second fire to the Library of Congress, which managed to extinguish over 60% of the collection acquired from Jefferson. Jefferson assembled a succeeding library of several thousand volumes. This second library was placed in an auction and purchased in 1829 in order to alleviate his indebtedness. Though Jefferson is recognized most for the breadth of his library, the most astounding characteristic of it is how it was cataloged. While most libraries during this period in American history classified their holdings alphabetically, he chose to catalog his collection by subject. His method of classification was based on a modified version of Lord Bacon's table of science, hierarchy of memory which included history, reason which included philosophy, and imagination which included the fine arts. Jefferson often disregarded his own classification scheme and shelved books according to their size. The most recognizable individuals in colonial North America were proprietors of substantial personal libraries. John Adams, for example, owned more than 3000 volumes, which were entrusted to the Boston Public Library in 1893. He was not only a bibliophile, but an amateur librarian; he maintained his collection fastidiously and even opened his library to the public. Legislator James Logan was a contemporary of Benjamin Franklin, with whom he developed a relationship over a passion for books. According to Logan, there was nothing more important than the acquisition of knowledge. His appetite for enlightenment led to the establishment of a private library of nearly 3000 titles, acknowledged as one of the largest in colonial America. In 1745, Logan converted his private library