64 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



each, grammatical notes in each dialect, native texts, including' myths r 

 historical papers, and epistles and sociologic notes. 



Office Work. — Col. Garrick Mallery, United States Army, has been en- 

 gaged in further researches and extensive correspondence for the com- 

 pletion of a monograph on sign language, and in the preparation of an 

 introduction to the study of pictographs, with the requisite illustrations. 

 In this work he has been assisted by Dr. W. J. Hoffman. 



Dr. H. C. Yarrow has continued the preparation of his monographs 

 on mortuary customs, and also has been occupied in obtaining data 

 for a work upon the medicine practices of the North American Indians. 



Mr. H. W. Henshaw was engaged in preparing a report upon Indian 

 industries, both from historical data and from the returns of the Indian 

 census. 



Prof. O. T. Mason has prepared a report upon Indian education, 

 based upon material obtained from the office of the Commissioner of 

 Indian Affairs, from correspondence with every school and college in 

 the United States, from the reports of the Indians, and from the general 

 census. This has been arranged with reference to the name, location, 

 and linguistic stock of every tribe, detailing the school facilities, attend- 

 ance, and literacy. 



During the year Mr. W. H. Holmes had general charge of the col- 

 lections of the Bureau outside of those from the mound district, and has 

 made the necessary classification and catalogue thereof. He has also 

 been acting as honorary curator of pottery in the National Museum, and 

 has spent much time in classifying and arranging the very large collec- 

 tions in that department. In connection with this work he has made 

 some interesting investigations relating to ancient American ceramics. 

 The most important of these were studies of the use of textile fabrics in 

 the manufacture of pottery by the ancient tribes of the Atlantic slope, 

 and of the art of "coiling" for the same purposes by all the American 

 people. Exhaustive papers have been prepared upon these subjects. 



Mr. Holmes has also had charge of the department of illustration of 

 the Bureau conjointly with that of the Geological Survey. 



Mrs. Erminnie Smith was engaged in translating into English the 

 manuscript French-Mohawk dictionary of Rev. Father Marcoux, pro- 

 cured by her, in which the spelling of the Indian words was changed to 

 that adopted by the Bureau of Ethnology. She also prepared a chres- 

 tomathy of the Mohawk dialect, and a table containing a large number 

 of words in use among the isolated Mohawks, with their synonyms as 

 used by the Mohawks on the " Six Nation Reserve." 



During the year the Bibliography of North American Linguistics, by 

 Mr. J. C. Pilling, was slowly put in type, only 350 pages having been 

 added. To this work Mr. Pilling has only been able to give such time as 

 could be spared from other more pressing official duties. In the spring 

 he made a trip to the west coast of the United States for the purpose of 

 inspecting the books in certain libraries in California, and in the fall a 



