REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 19 
Considerable progress has been made in arranging the large 
quantities of natural-history specimens collected by the Smithsonian 
African expedition and the Smithsonian biological survey of the 
Panama Canal Zone. Some of the African mammals of greatest 
public interest have been mounted in groups. 
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY. 
The Bureau of American Ethnology has been engaged for a 
number of years in scientific studies of the American aborigines, 
including their arts and industries, government, religious and soci- 
ological systems, and languages, as well as their mental and physical 
characteristics, their history, and antiquities. Much has been ac- 
complished in this direction, and many of the results have been 
permanently recorded and disseminated by means of publication; 
but a large body of material still awaits final study and arrange- 
ment, and much work remains to be done both in the field and in the 
office. 
The investigations of the bureau have, however, reached a stage 
at which it has been found possible to summarize some of the results 
in the form of handbooks, designed especially for the use of schools 
and unprofessional students. The demand for those already issued, 
or about to be published, is very large. Many changes are taking 
place among the Indians, owing to their advance in civilization, and 
for that reason the researches are being pressed with all possible 
speed while knowledge of primitive conditions is still available. The 
Indians form one of the great races of mankind, and the world 
properly looks to our Government to gather and record accurate 
knowledge of this branch of the human family, while by many the 
work of the Bureau of American Ethnology is regarded as the basis 
of American history. 
One of the immediate demands upon the bureau is vigorous activity 
in the exploration and preservation of antiquities, especially in 
Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico, before these important and 
most interesting ruins are entirely destroyed by vandalism or the 
elements. 
Another important work that should speedily be undertaken is 
an ethnological study of the Indians and Eskimo of Alaska before 
the advent of greater numbers of white people shall have so modified 
them as to destroy their primitive character. So also there is need 
of further activity in the study of the few survivors of Indian tribes 
in the Middle West. 
The bureau has conducted various lines of field work among the 
tribes which composed the Creek Confederacy of the Southern 
States; the Tewa Indians of the Rio Grande Valley, New Mexico; 
