334 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



PHILOLOGY. 



Churchill, William, Washington, D. C. Associate in Primitive Philology. 

 (For previous reports see Year Books Nos. 14 and 15.) 



The principal investigations during the year have been devoted to 

 an ethnological examination of the problems of Polynesian migration 

 through Melanesia, which in former researches have been dealt with 

 along lines purely philological. In the pursuit of this branch of the 

 subject I made a careful collation of the several thousand pieces of 

 South Sea ethnica contained in the museum of the University of Penn- 

 sylvania. In connection therewith grateful acknowledgment is made 

 of the faciUties cordially offered by the Provost of that university 

 and by Dr. George Byron Gordon, the director of the museum. Par- 

 ticular interest centered upon the collection of war weapons, their form, 

 fencing art, metrology, decoration. This material has been digested 

 in the monograph ''Club Types of Nuclear Polynesia" (PubUcation 

 No. 255), in which intimate attention has been directed upon the 

 evolution of wooden club forms from precedent weapons in which 

 stone and shell heads were mounted upon wooden hafts. In this study 

 it has been possible to trace the movement of races eastward into 

 Nuclear Polynesia from discrete culture horizons in distant Melanesia 

 and thus to confirm by material objects several of the conclusions 

 already reached in the hnguistic discussion of the problem. 



I have had the opportunity to revise the manuscript of the Sa'a- 

 Ulawa dictionary compiled by the Rev. Walter G. Ivens and to give 

 such assistance as in my power to forwarding this work through the 

 press. 



PHYSIOLOGY. 



Reichert, E. T., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

 The differentiation of starches of parent-stock and hybrids. (For previous 

 reports see Year Books Nos. 9-15.) 



Dr. Reichert states that he is closely approaching the completion of 

 his memoir. His calculations of the time required to complete the 

 investigation have been upset mainly on account of the novel character 

 of the research, but the results are satisfactory and the report will 

 find a place among the unique and fundamental contributions of bio- 

 logical Uterature. The results are not only in accord with the funda- 

 mental findings of the two previous researches, but extend many steps 

 farther and lead the way to collateral work of the greatest importance. 



