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PREFACE 



Each year the Smithsonian Institution and certain of its branches — 

 notably the U. S. National Museum, the Bureau of American Eth- 

 nology, and the Astrophysical Observatory — send into the field expe- 

 ditions for the purpose of obtaining information and collections needed 

 in the pursuance of their researches in biology, geology, anthropology, 

 and astrophysics. The results of these researches are published sooner 

 or later, usually as technical papers, in one of the series issued by the 

 Institution. In the meantime it is considered desirable to present in 

 this annual explorations pamphlet brief articles on the field expeditions 

 themselves. The articles, written by the field workers, tell of the 

 purpose of the expeditions, the methods of acquiring the desired ma- 

 terial, something of the results obtained, and perhaps a little of the 

 interest of scientific work in the field, often in places seldom visited 

 by man. The. whole gives an idea of the wide scope of the Institution's 

 scientific activities, undertaken with the sole purpose of increasing 

 knowledge and diffusing it. 



W. P. True, 

 Editor, Smithsonian Institution. 



