ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN AMERICA. 



i 99 



America. Meantime, the Essex Institute was gathering collec- 

 tions in other lines and from the neighboring district. In 1867 

 the collections of the two organizations were combined in the old 

 East India Marine Society Hall, becoming the property of the 

 new organization the Peabody Academy of Science. The acad- 

 emy has gone on quietly but 

 constantly, with little blow- 

 ing of trumpets, and good 

 work has been done. Late- 

 ly an additional exhibition 

 hall has been built, and in 

 it are displayed the ethno- 

 graphical collections. No 

 one in America who is en- 

 gaged in studying the eth- 

 nography of the South Sea 

 Islands can afford to neglect 

 this series. Prof. Edward 

 S. Morse, whose chief con- 

 tributions to ethnography 

 are his paper on Methods 

 of Arrow Release and his 

 book on Japanese Homes, is 

 the director of the academy, 

 and Mr. John Robinson is 



m 



charge of the museum. 



Prof. 0. T. Mason. 



Some day the story of the 



Davenport (Iowa) Academy of Science will be an interesting chap- 

 ter in the history of science in the United States. It has never 

 had a large donation in money, and much of its work has been 

 done by poor men. It has had a constant struggle to survive. It 

 is certainly fit to live, for there, with no trained anthropologist or 

 professional ethnographer to direct or develop a definite plan of 

 work, has grown up an excellent collection in archaeology. Prob- 

 ably nowhere except in Salisbury, England, is there so large a 

 series of " curved-base pipes " of stone from the mounds ; nowhere 

 else is there so interesting a series of copper axes wrapped in 

 cloth ; nowhere, except at Washington, so fine a series of pottery 

 from the Arkansas mounds, nor many much better collections of 

 mound crania. Nor has the academy been silent. Notwithstand- 

 ing its money poverty it has published valuable Transactions, by 

 the exchange of which it has gathered a creditable library. 



Washington has become a great scientific center, and of the 

 whole circle of sciences none is more cultivated there than an- 

 thropology. Under Major Powell a remarkable organizer and 

 an indefatigable worker has been organized the Bureau of Eth- 



