Oct. 1898. Annl'al Report of thk Director. 277 



Arizona, in December and January. The object of the expedition 

 was to make casts of a number of Hopi Indians, for the purpose of 

 reproduction. Mr. Dorsey, in his report, says : "Although we suf- 

 fered greatly from the unusually cold weather, and from several mis- 

 haps generally incident to a wagon journey in Arizona, the expedition 

 was very successful, and, as a matter of fact, we secured two more 

 figures than we had anticipated. In addition to the casts, I secured 

 a small collection, supplementing the one I made in August last 

 year. This consisted chiefly of garments and paraphernalia necessary 

 for the building of the Hopi groups. At this time I also passed four 

 days in exploration of the ancient Hopi ruin of Homolobi, near 

 Winslow. Here we secured over one hundred specimens of most 

 interesting ceramics and a number of stone implements and fetiches." 

 During the month of April, Mr. Dorsey took advantage of the unusual 

 opportunity offered by the presence in Chicago of a band of Esqui- 

 maux, brought here by Captain Miner W. Bruce, to whom the Museum 

 is chiefly indebted for its extensive Alaskan collections. Captain 

 Bruce kindly placed these people at the disposition of the Museum, 

 and they came to the building day after day, until in all casts of nine 

 individuals had been completed. These were made under extremely 

 favorable conditions, and the results obtained promise to be entirely 

 satisfactory. In the Department of Botany, Mr. Millspaugh, the 

 Curator, has continued his work upon the collection of North Ameri- 

 can forest trees, making trips to Southern Illinois, Mississippi, 

 Arkansas, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and Northern New 

 York, during which a large amount of material was secured and 

 much valuable data acquired. The most important field work under- 

 taken by the Department of Geology during the year was the equip- 

 ment of an expedition for the collection of vertebrate fossils in the 

 Bad Lands of South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wyoming. This was 

 intended, chiefly, to begin a collection for the purpose of repre- 

 senting the structure and characteristics of the ancient vertebrates 

 which inhabited this region during Tertiary times. Mr. Farrington, 

 in his report of this expedition, says: " No region in the world is 

 richer in the remains of ancient mammals than that mentioned, and 

 the work of collecting and preserving them before they decay 

 seems of paramount importance. Aside from the intrinsic interest 

 which the structure of these ancient animals possess, it seems hardly 

 less than a duty on the part of the Museum to secure and preserve as 

 far as possible these remains, as often as they are exposed by the hand 

 of Nature. The expedition sent by the Museum this year devoted its 

 attention mainly to collecting mammal remains of the White River 



