584 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 11)25 



Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, by Squier and Davis, and up 

 to the founding of the Bureau of Ethnology the Institution had 

 issued upward of 600 papers on ethnology and archeology. 



The work of the bureau has embraced a wide range. It was found 

 that within the area with which the nation has to deal there are 

 spoken some 500 Indian languages, as distinct from one another as 

 French is from English, and that these languages are grouped in 

 more than 50 linguistic families. 



Some of the more directly practical results accomplished may be 

 briefly mentioned: (1) A study of the relations, location, and 

 numbers of the tribes, and their classification into groups or families, 

 based on affinity in language — a necessary basis for dealing Avith the 

 tribes practically or scientifically; (2) a study of the numerous 

 sociologic, religious, and industrial problems involved, an acquaint- 

 ance with Avhich is essential to the intelligent management of the 

 tribes in adjusting them to the requirements of civilization; (;]) a 

 history of the relations of the Indian and whit« races embodied in a 

 volume on land cessions; (4) investigations into the physiology, 

 medical practices, and sanitation of a people who suffer keenly from 

 imperfect adaptation to the new^ conditions imposed on them; (5) 

 the preparation of bibliographies embodying all works relating to 

 the tribes; (6) a study of their industrial and economic resources; 

 (7) a study of the antiquities of the country with a view to their 

 record and preservation; and (8) a handbook of the -tribes, em- 

 bodying, in condensed form, the accumulated information of many 

 years. So valuable has this handbook proved, not only to the student 

 of ethnology but to the general public, that three editions have been 

 published in the United States, and the Canadian Government has 

 also reprinted a part of the worlc. 



The more strictly scientific results relate to every department of 

 anthropologic research — phj^sical, psychological, linguistic, socio- 

 logic, religious, technic, and esthetic — and are embodied in numerous 

 papers published in the reports, contributions, and bulletins ; and the 

 general results in each of tliese departments have been compiled 

 and collated by the highest available authorities. 



THE ASTROPHYSICAL OBSERVATORY 



This world is habitable because its temperature lies between 

 freezing and boiling. What keeps it so ? The rays of the sun warm 

 it, the rays of the earth cool it. The atmosphere, with its water 

 vapor, its clouds and dust, obstructs the passage of both the sun rays 

 and the earth rays. The Astrophysical Observatory is the only 

 institution in the world that is making a general study of these 

 fundamental things. It has devised and constructed several types 

 of apparatus for these measurements which have become the stand- 



