SECRETARY’S REPORT 57 
weeks in August. The archeologist and field assistant detailed from 
the Washington office returned to their regular assignments in Au- 
gust. Two temporary field assistants were terminated in August. 
Two other temporary field assistants were appointed as archeologists 
on the permanent staff. One temporary field assistant was transferred 
to duty outside the Missouri Basin in January. One illustrator was 
added to the permanent staff in November. All other temporary 
employees were terminated in December and January. Four museum 
aides were added to the permanent staff during the year. One tempo- 
rary archeologist and two temporary field assistants were added at the 
beginning of the 1958 field season. At the end of the fiscal year there 
were 6 archeologists in addition to the chief, 1 administrative assist- 
ant, 1 clerk-stenographer, 1 file clerk (three-quarters time), 1 clerk- 
typist, 1 photographer, 1 illustrator, and 4 museum aides on the 
permanent staff. Temporary employees included 1 archeologist, 1 
physical anthropologist, 2 field assistants, 3 cooks, and 90 crewmen. 
During the year there were 19 Smithsonian Institution River Basin 
Surveys field parties at work within the Missouri Basin, while 
another, working outside the Basin, also operated from the Project 
office in Lincoln. Of the 19 Missouri Basin parties, 5 were at work 
in July, August, and September in the Big Bend Reservoir area in 
South Dakota, and 5 additional parties were at work there in June. 
Five parties worked in the Oahe Reservoir area in July, August, and 
September, and four other parties were at work there in June. The 
party outside the Missouri Basin was that in the Dardanelle Reser- 
voir area in Arkansas. 
Other fieldwork in the Missouri Basin during the year included 11 
field parties from State institutions working under agreements with 
the National Park Service and in cooperation with the salvage re- 
search program of the Smithsonian Institution. Parties from the 
Universities of South Dakota, Idaho, Wyoming, Kansas, and Mis- 
sourl and from the North Dakota State Historical Society were in the 
field during July to October. Parties from the Universities of South 
Dakota, Idaho, Wyoming, and Missouri were conducting excavations 
in June, as was a joint party from the North Dakota State Historical 
Society and the University of North Dakota. 
At the beginning of the year in the Big Bend Reservoir area, 
G. Hubert Smith and a party of 10 were engaged in excavations on 
the right bank of the Missouri River near the mouth of Medicine 
Creek, in Lyman County, S. Dak., at site 39L.M241. This site was 
believed to be that of Fort Defiance (or Bouis), a small, short-lived 
trading post of the 1840’s. It was one of a number of such estab- 
lishments organized from time to time in competition with the Ameri- 
can Fur Co. (P. Chouteau, Jr., & Co., after 1834). It was hoped that 
