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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



supplied by the British Association for the Advancement of Sci- 

 ence, and his animal reports, published by that body, have been 

 veritable storehouses of new and valuable information. Dr. Boas 

 has lately prepared an important work upon the Mythology of 



North America, which will 

 soon appear from the fjress. 

 Dr. Boas is in charge of the 

 Physical Anthropology Sec- 

 tion of the Department of 

 Ethnology and Archaeology 

 of the World's Columbian 

 Exposition of Chicago. In 

 connection with this work 

 he plans to gather such 

 a mass of anthropometric 

 data concerning the red man 

 as has never before been 

 brought together. Within 

 the next few months he 

 hopes to have fully twenty 

 thousand Indians of differ- 

 ent tribes carefully meas- 

 ured. Important facts may 

 be discovered from a care- 

 ful study of the material 

 thus secured. Dr. Boas at 

 present lectures to a class of students upon statistics in anthro- 

 pology and other sciences ; how to secure, tabulate, and use them. 

 Special graduate students are put at work in his laboratory, which 

 is fairly equipped, upon some line of original research and study, 

 the results of which may be published as contributions to sci- 

 ence. 



Museums in ethnography and anthropology are not yet nu- 

 merous in America. Collections of considerable size and worthy 

 of special notice exist at Cambridge, Salem, New York, Phila- 

 delphia, Washington, and Davenport. Of very great importance 

 is the Peabody Museum of American Ethnology at Cambridge, 

 connected with Harvard University, and under direction of Prof. 

 Frederick W. Putnam. At first a zoologist, especially interested 

 in fishes. Prof. Putnam has long since laid aside everything 

 except archaeology. The present work and importance of the 

 museum are mainly due to him. Nine large rooms are filled with 

 valuable collections, a great part of which have been gathered 

 under his personal supervision. No man has done so much to 

 bring about the careful and systematic method of excavation of 

 mounds now followed as he. To refer to all the objects of 



Albert S. Gatschet. 



