282 REPOKT OF NATIONAL MUSKUM, 1SS9. 



the study of countries lying within an SOO-iniic radius around Palestine. 

 So rapidly has this plan developed that a new section was formed under 

 the curatorship of Dr. Paul Haupt, with Dr. Cyrus Adler, as assistant 

 curator. Both of these gentlemen are connected witli the Johns Hop- 

 kins University, Baltimore. A report of this section will be made by 

 Dr. Adler. 



Another exhibit organized may be called the ethnic series. In it 

 by means of charts, colored maps, life-size lay figures, busts, miniature 

 lay figures, painted portraits, and colored photographs, it is designed 

 to teach the visitor the spread of various types of mankind, and to show 

 just how these types appear. Great care has been bestowed upon this 

 section. From Paris have come M. Hebert's reproductions. Many 

 pieces have been prepared by our own workmen. The Bureau of Eth- 

 nology contributes photographs of all Indian delegations visiting the 

 city. The Austrian minister has given a set of maps. This series is so 

 installed that a public-school teacher may bring her class to the Museum 

 and give to them a practical lesson in ethnology. 



In another section of ethnic installation the curator is enabled to ex- 

 press his renewed obligation to the U. S. Navy. In a former report men- 

 tion was made of the great help rendered by Lieut. T. Dix Bolles, U. S. 

 Navy, in the installation of the Eskimo collections. During the last 

 year the curator was aided by Ensign Albert P. Niblack, U. S. Navy, 

 in arranging the specimens from the strip of our continent lying be- 

 tween Mt. St. Elias and Vancouver Island, along the Pacific coast, 

 partly in British Columbia and partly in Alaska. This region is 

 sometimes called the Northwest coast of America. The only objection 

 to this title is the fact that in the Wilkes' narrative the same term is 

 applied to the strip from San Francisco Bay to the Straits of San 

 Juan de Fuca. There are several distinct linguistic stocks here, the 

 Koloshan, the H aid an, Tsimsian, Haeltzukan,.and Salishan, but the 

 region forms one of these unique areas in which the arts, the modes 

 of life, even the philosophical and religious conceptions have been 

 -mded and molded by surroundings. 



Ensign Niblack was on duty in the Museum from October 3 to 

 March 22. He was ordered to the Smithsonian to prepare a report on 

 the Coast Indians of Alaska and Northern British Columbia from 

 notes made in connection with the survey ot Alaska in 1885, 1886, and 

 1^87, such orders being in pursuance of a plan formed by the Navy 

 Department iu 1881, to further the progress of scientific research by 

 enlisting the interest of naval officers on their cruises iu making such 

 collections and notes as might prove of value. The ethnological ma- 

 terial in the National Museum from southern Alaska offered a fine 

 field for illustrating the ethnographic character of these Indians, 

 and in connection with the photographs and sketches taken in the 

 field, form the basis of the illustrations of the report. Two charts also 

 accompany the report, one representing the Indian stocks, as defined 



