176 Field Museum of Natural History— Reports, Vol. X 



Minister, the Minister of the Interior, the Chief of Police, the Governor 

 of Isfahan, and the American Minister, Mr. William S. Hornibrook. 

 On September 14, Messrs. Field and Martin entered the Union 

 of Soviet Socialistic Republics at Baku on the Caspian Sea. At the 

 request of the United States Department of State and Ambassador 

 William C. Bullitt, the Soviet officials allowed free entry into the 

 Soviet Union for all the expedition equipment. Traveling was 

 greatly facilitated by VOKS (the Society for Cultural Relations 

 with Foreign Countries) and Intourist (the Soviet travel organi- 

 zation), whose representatives rendered every possible assistance. 

 In Baku the Academy of Sciences, the University of Azerbaijan, 

 and the Neft Geological Museum were visited. The collections of 

 the Georgian Museum in Tiflis were studied. With the assistance of 

 VOKS fifty male Yezidis were measured in the Kurd Club. These 

 observations will form valuable comparative material with the data 

 obtained on the two groups of Yezidis studied in northern Iraq. 

 Ordzhonikidze was reached by automobile over the Georgian Military 

 Highway. The peoples of northern Ossetia in the Caucasus have 

 been little studied from the standpoint of physical anthropology. 

 Through the assistance of Mr. T. Demurow, local chairman of 

 Northern Ossetian Education, anthropometric observations, measure- 

 ments, and photographs of 100 men and 50 women were compiled. 

 In addition, a staff of medical assistants was provided by the Soviet 

 government to obtain specimens of blood, hair samples, weight, pulse, 

 temperature, and hand pressure of these individuals. The 150 blood 

 samples were sent to Dr. Walter P. Kennedy, Royal Hospital, 

 Bagdad, for study. 



Messrs. Field and Martin visited the various academies of 

 science, museums, universities, and libraries in Rostov-on-Don, 

 Kharkov, Kiev, Moscow, and Leningrad. During the five weeks 

 spent in the Soviet Union they were able to study many museum 

 collections, visit sixty-eight institutions of various kinds, and meet 

 the leading Soviet anthropologists and archaeologists. Plans for 

 exchanging scientific material and publications were discussed. 



Mr. Field returned to the Museum in December, preceded by 

 Mr. Martin, who came back in November. 



Classifying the data and photographs of the expedition has 

 already begun, and the zoological, botanical, and geological speci- 

 mens have been distributed to the various Departments. 



News of the death of Mr. Louis Charles Watelin, late field director 

 of the Field Museum-Oxford University Joint Expedition to Kish, 



