REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 73 



of the ceramic products of tliat conntry. His collection, consisting of 

 several hundred pieces of ancient ware, has been presented to the Na- 

 tional Museum. 



Dr. H. C. Yarrow spent the months of August and September, 1884, 

 in the Territory of Utah to prosecute ethnologic inquiries. Several 

 mounds were carefully examined at Provo, 50 miles sonth of Salt Lake 

 City. These did not aflbrd any specimens, but showed the manner in 

 which the former Indian inhabitants of the Great Salt Lake Valley con- 

 structed their adobe dwellings. From Provo he proceeded west to a 

 place known as the "Old Government Kanch," where an Indian burial 

 cave was discovered, which for some years had been used by the Gos- 

 hute Indians, from which the Indian remains were removed. Prom 

 here he crossed the southern limb of the American desert and reached 

 the settlement of Willow Spring, at which point a nunjber of bnrial 

 places were discoverecV, giving results of interest. Thence he went to 

 Deep Creek, the present home of the band of Goshute Indians, number- 

 ing about 150 souls; learned from them the meaning of many of their 

 ceremonies and burial rites, and obtained a collection of articles of na- 

 tive manufacture. A similar collection with information thereupon was 

 obtained from the band of Pahvants at Fillmore, Utah. 



Mr. Jeremiah Curtin prosecuted studies in Indian philosophy and 

 folk lore among the Senecas in Missouri, during the month of Febru- 

 ary, and later from the Shawnee and other Algonkian tribes in Mis- 

 souri and Indian Territory. In June he visited the Seminole Indians in 

 that Territory with the same object in view, and in October proceeded 

 to Redding, Cal., where he continued the collection of m\ ths among 

 the Nozi Indians. 



2. Office Worlc. 



The Director, Maj. J. W. Powell, has continued the work, fiist, of 

 classifying on a linguistic basis all the tribes, remaining and extinct, of 

 North America; second, of establishing their synonomy or the refer- 

 ence of their many and confusing titles as given in literature and com- 

 mon usage to a correct and systematic standard of nomenclature; and 

 third, of the ascertainment and display on a series of charts of the hab- 

 itat of all tribes when first met by Europeans or subsequent periods 

 Much progress has been nuide in this undertaking, recognized as essen- 

 tial to the i^roper study of Indian anthropology. 



Col. Garrick Mallery was engaged during the year in the continued 

 study of sign language. A number of important collections of gesture 

 signs were procured from j)arts of the United States not before thor- 

 oughly explored in this respect. Collections of great value were also 

 obtained from Japan, Asiatic Turkey, and from several of the Polyne- 

 sian groups. The increased collection of material, with its collation, 

 indicates that while one system of gesture-speech has long existed 

 among the North American Indians, it is not to be regarded as one 



