SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS. 



316 



CIRCULAR IN REFERENCE TO AMERICAN 

 ARCHEOLOGY. 



Smithsonian Institution, 

 Washington, D. C, Fehruanj 1, 1878. 



For more than a quarter of a century, the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion has been engaged in researches concerning the antiquities of 

 America. As the result of its efforts many important memoirs 

 have been prepared, and published in its Annual Reports and in 

 the Contributions to Knowledge; and the National Museum, in 

 charge of the Institution, has become the depository of the largest 

 and most valuable collection of American aboriginal relics in the 

 world. 



In continuation of previous effort in the same direction, the 

 Institution contemplates the publication of an exhaustive work on 

 American Archseology, with numerous illustrations This will be 

 accompanied by a series of maps, exhibiting by appropriate signs 

 and colors the localities and distinctive characteristics of ancient 

 mounds and earthworks ; shell-heaps ; cave and cliff-dwellings ; ma- 

 sonry ; sculptured slabs or carved images ; inscriptions and rock paint- 

 ings; graves and cemeteries; aboriginal quarries and salt works; 

 caches or deposits of objects in large quantities ; workshops or places 

 oj ancient aboriginal industry ; ancient roads or trails; and reser- 

 voirs and aqueducts. 



