SECRETARY’S REPORT 25 
pertinent Caroline Islands materials from important collections of 
early American ships’ logs, journals, and manuscripts of early voy- 
ages contained in the archives of that museum and the Essex Insti- 
tute. Parallel] studies were made in the Harvard Peabody Museum 
and in the Houghton Library of Harvard University, where many 
pertinent ethnohistorical manuscript records of the American Board 
of Commissioners for Foreign Missions are housed. Such museum 
and library studies are aiding Dr. Riesenberg in his projected analysis 
of Micronesian material culture, which is an attempt to place Micro- 
nesia in its proper ethnological position with respect to Pacific island 
cultural development and history. A trip for the same purposes was 
made by Dr. Riesenberg to the Chicago Natural History Museum be- 
tween March 9 and 13, 1959. At this important museum he examined 
and studied the collections of important ethnographical materials 
from the Caroline and Marshall Islands. 
In continuation of his African studies, Dr. Gordon D, Gibson, asso- 
ciate curator of ethnology, spent the week of May 18 to 23, 1959, 
examining ethnological materials from Angola in the collections of the 
Chicago Natural History Museum and in conferring with staff mem- 
bers with respect to the identification of African specimens in our 
collections, certain problems of museum display, the possibility of 
exchanging specimens, and problems connected with his research. 
The Chicago Natural History Museum has probably the largest col- 
lection of Angolan ethnological materials in the United States, and 
therefore the opportunity to study these materials at firsthand was 
a significant aid to the progress of Dr. Gibson’s research on the eth- 
nology of the southwestern Bantu. 
In the latter part of July and early in August 1958 Dr. T. Dale 
Stewart, curator of physical anthropology, visited several coun- 
tries in Central America. Together with Dr. Evans and Dr. Meggers, 
he visited the National Museum in Panama, where, as indicated above, 
the Smithsonian Institution party was very well received. They 
made a brief trip to the San Blas Islands on the Atlantic side of the 
Isthmus, in order to see firsthand the San Blas or Cuna Indians liv- 
ing thereon. These Indians have kept themselves pureblooded and 
therefore offer opportunities for research. Dr. Stewart also attended 
the 83d International Congress of Americanists in San José, Costa 
Rica. Like Drs. Evans and Meggers, he was asked to act as chairman 
at one of the sessions, and in addition he read an invited paper. It is 
felt that the Smithsonian Institution staff has been and still is at 
work in a critical area for the solution of problems referring to pre- 
historic cultures of Central America and the coast of Ecuador. 
Following the congress, Dr. and Mrs. Stewart went north to Guate- 
mala, where they were joined by about 20 anthropologists. On 
