108 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
position on October 1, 1908, removing to Philadelphia to assume the | 
presidency of The Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning. 
Doctor Adler entered the service of the Institution in 1888 as an 
assistant curator in the National Museum. In 1892 he was appointed 
librarian of the Institution, and in 1905 became assistant secretary. 
His service of twenty years was marked by a wonderful grasp of detail, | 
and he was an invaluable aid to the secretary in all matters pertain- 
ing to the scope of the Institution’s work as well as to its administra- | 
tion. He was a man of keen judgment and wide culture and an | 
exceedingly useful member of the Institution’s executive force. 
Death of Prof. Otis T. Mason.—It is with deep regret that I have | 
to announce the death, on November 5, 1908, of one of our strong | 
men, Prof. Otis T. Mason, who had been associated with the Institu- 
tion since 1873, first as a collaborator in ethnology, next as curator | 
of that branch, and finally as head curator of the department of 
anthropology. Professor Mason was born in 1838, so that his life has 
been almost contemporaneous with the Smithsonian Institution, and 
he bears an honorable share in its history. 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. 
Tuberculosis Congress —In compliance with the direction of the 
President, the new building for the National Museum was selected for 
the meetings and exhibits of the International Congress on Tubercu- 
losis, $40,000 being placed at the disposal of the secretary for the 
requisite arrangements in this connection. 
The plans for the adaptation of the building to this purpose were 
put in the hands of the superintendent of construction, Mr. Bernard R. 
Green. About 100,000 square feet of the building on the first and 
second floors, exclusive of the south wings, were used for the congress, 
and indebtedness is acknowledged to the War, Navy, and Treasury 
departments, and also to the Bureau of American Republics, which 
supplied the flags of the United States and of foreign nations for deco- 
rating the halls. 
The congress opened on September 21 and adjourned on October 
12. By November 3 all traces of the convention had been removed 
and the building was again ready for the resumption of construction 
operations. The amount expended in fitting up the building for the 
congress: was $24,321.08. 
Thirty-one independent nations and 45 States of the Union 
were represented. There were 438 contributors, of whom 312 were 
citizens of the United States. The total attendance to the congress 
was approximately 148,000. 
Among the contributors to the exhibits, the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion presented the results of an investigation among certain of the 
Indian tribes, for the Department of the Interior, with a view to 
