32 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
During the past year 34,409 classified index cards of American 
scientific literature were prepared and forwarded to London, as 
compared with 28,528 during the year preceding. The publication 
of the sixth annual issue was completed during the year and 9 of the 
17 volumes of the seventh annual issue were received from the Central 
Bureau and distributed to the subscribers in this country. 
NECROLOGY. 
OTIS TUFTON MASON. 
It is with deep regret that I have to announce the death, on Novem- 
ber 5, 1908, of one of our strong men, Prof. Otis T. Mason, who had 
been associated with the Institution since 1873, first as a collaborator -~ 
in ethnology, next as curator of that branch, and finally as head 
curator of the department of anthropology. I may say, indeed, that 
this association and influence dates much farther back, when, at 12 
years of age, in 1851, he began his education in Washington when 
the activities of the Institution affected every intelligent citizen. 
Professor Mason was born in 1888, so that his life has been almost 
contemporaneous with the Smithsonian Institution, and he bears an 
honorable share in its history. He says in his autobiography: 
My first studies were in the culture of the eastern Mediterranean peoples, 
which I followed persistently until the early seventies, when a chance acquaint- 
ance with Professor Henry and Professor Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution, 
opened the Western Hemisphere to my mind and changed the current of my 
life. 
His agreeable qualities as a man, his earnestness in his work, and 
his contagious enthusiasm render this loss a most severe one to the 
Institution. 
Respectfully submitted. 
Cuartes D. Watcort, Secretary. 
