68 REPOKT or ISTATIOFAL MUSEUM, 1919. 



business establishment in which a definite body of interests is han- 

 dled. With respect to duplicate and storage collections, I am sure 

 that the very best that can be done for them is being done by the 

 several curators. 



Field explorations. — The field researches of the year were limited 

 to three brief explorations by members of the anthropological staff 

 and to certain explorations by Mr. Gerard Fowke, the well-known 

 archeologist. All were conducted under the auspices of the Bureau of 

 American Ethnologj^ and resulted in each case in the acquirement of 

 valuable collections of relics left by the ancient peoples. During 

 May and June Dr. Walter Hough, curator of etlmology, was engaged 

 in examining certain heretofore unexplored sites formerly occupied 

 by the ancient cliff dwellers on the White Mountain Apache Reserva- 

 tion, Arizona. He was still in the field at the close of the year. Mr. 

 Neil M. Judd, curator of American archeology, explored a number of 

 caves formerly occupied by the cliff and cave dwellers of western 

 Utah, securing many relics of interest, and Mr. Fowke carried for- 

 ward his cavern explorations in Missouri. His collections, which 

 have not yet reached the Museum, are said to be important. Dr. 

 Ales Hrdlicka spent a month in Florida, devoting his attention to 

 the exploration of the little-known region of Ten Thousand Islands, 

 the object being to trace along the western coast of the peninsula 

 certain anthropological types characterizing the former aboriginal 

 population, at the same time conducting studies of such Seminole 

 Indians as could be found roaming the islands. 



Doctor Hough had the good fortune to discover ancient occupied 

 sites covering several acres of ground on Blagden Plains, overlook- 

 ing Piney Branch, District of Columbia. These sites were recognized 

 by the occurrence of chipped implements of quartzite and quartz and 

 a very large number of unfinished a,nd broken specimens. It is ap- 

 parent that these sites, in part at least, are the finishing shops occu- 

 pied by the workers of the boulder quarries located in the neighbor- 

 ing ravine, examined by Dr. W. H. Holmes and described in detail 

 in the Fifteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American 

 Ethnolog}^ 



Closely related to field work as ordinarily interpreted are official 

 visits of members of the Museum staff to distant cities, for the pur- 

 pose of getting information on subjects related to their Museum 

 functions or to attend conferences or deliver lectures on subjects of 

 Museum interest. In September the curator of history, Mr. T. T. 

 Belote, visited New York, with the view of obtaining needed infor- 

 mation regarding the acquirement for the Museum of military and 

 naval insignia and war relics and materials generally. The infor- 

 mation obtained led to excellent results now materializing in exten- 

 sive war collections. Later the curator of history, accompanied by 



