ANTHROPOLOGY. 517 



staiuling committees on pieliistoric remaiiivS and the. preservation of 

 ancient monuments. The former committee has been busy in mapping 

 and describing- all the monuments of the country ; the hitter in peti- 

 tioning: both rarliameut and the local proprietors to preserve the most 

 celebrated remains. A brief of the reports will be found in Nature, 

 XXXVII, 93, 94. 



The same is also true in France and Germany. Movements are on 

 foot for the cataloguing of all museums, for the systematic and co-op- 

 erative survey of remains and the preservation of such monuments as 

 have historic interest. 



The Koyal Academy of Sciences in Austria has appointed a i^rehis- 

 toric commission, which has already issued its tirst report. In our 

 own country the subject of archieology is also receiving a systematic 

 treatment. Fortunately for the tinal result the two principal institu- 

 tions engaged in extended work are pursuing different methods. 



Prof. Cyrus Thomas, of the Bureau of Ethnology, commences with a 

 census of all the mounds, earth- works, and other aboriginal remains in 

 the United States. In the Ohio Archieological and Historical Quar- 

 terly Mrs. Thomas presents a bibliography on this subject, but the plan 

 of the Bureau has been more extended than this. The whole area has 

 a card catalogue, by means of which it is possible to construct maps of 

 large or small spaces and to exhibit the number and distribution of 

 each class. The most valuable portion of Professor Thomas' task, and 

 that which exhibits the great advantage of combined labor, is that he 

 is able to work by the side of another statt'of men who are studying the 

 distribution of Indians over this continent at the time when they were 

 first visited by white men. Laying the map of the distribution of lin- 

 guistic stocks on the top of his own map of the mounds, and so forth, 

 he has a starting point for deciding who were the Mound-builders. 



The Peabody Museum, or, strictly speaking, its curator. Professor 

 Putnam, educated in comparative anatomy under the elder Agassiz, has 

 addressed himself to another problem, namely, the careful dissection of 

 graves, mounds, and remains so as to know exactly how they were con- 

 structed, what relics are deposited in them, and what modern modes 

 of burial they most resemble. Of course, the final result will be reached 

 by combining the two investigations. 



It is iini)ossible to mention the iiames of authors who have reported 

 si)ecial researches in arclueology. 



To follow the subject abroad it is only necessary to study the English 

 Archaeological Review^, Antiifua, the French Materiaux pour I'Ristorie 

 de I'Homme, and the bibliographical appendix to the Archiv fiir An- 

 thropologic. 



In our own country the annual reports of the Peabody Museum, the 

 reports of the Archieological Institute of America and its ally the 

 American Journal of Archieology, the American Antiquarian, Proceed- 

 ings of the American Antiquarian Society, the reports of the Smithso- 



