52 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



also retain knowledge of myths regarding the remarkable basalt 

 column near Sundance, Wyo., on the northwestern slope of the 

 Black Hills, known as the Devil's Tower, but to the Kiowa as the 

 Rock Standing Like a Tree. An elaborate paper was finished on 

 the subject, going into the geology, history, and mythology of the 

 Devil's Tower. 



Dr. Harrington next finished a report on The Northern Pro- 

 venience of the Navaho and Apache, tracing related languages in 

 detail to Alaska, northwestern Canada, and the Pacific Coast of 

 the United States, and telling in detail how the relationship of 

 Navaho and Apache to the Indians of the far northwest was dis- 

 covered by W. W. Turner, librarian in the Patent Office, Wash- 

 ington, D. C, in 1852. This voluminous report resulted in the 

 discovery by Dr. Harrington of a curious distribution of these lan- 

 guages, the map of which takes the form of a wishbone. Their 

 nucleus is in the far Northwest, one prong extending down the 

 Pacific Coast and terminating a little north of San Francisco Bay, 

 another eastern prong extending down through the Rocky Moun- 

 tain region and culminating in the Navaho and Apache of the 

 Southwest. An exhaustive study was made of the earliest docu- 

 ments and maps on the subject, in the compilation of which Dr. 

 Harrington was assisted by the Geographic Board of Canada. 



A report was completed on the Siberian Origin of the Ameri- 

 can Indian, presenting the background, the earliest historic writ- 

 ings on the subject, the Eskimo problem, the problem of the means 

 of crossing (whether by boat, over ice, or b}' means of former land 

 bridge), the distribution of tribes and density of population as 

 bearing out the theor}'^, and general aspects. In this study he w^as 

 assisted by many other students, including native interpreters of 

 the Bering Strait region. This report suggests that America was 

 first discovered as a result of over-population which developed in 

 the east of Asia and forced Paleo-Siberian peoples to enter the 

 Chukchi Peninsula. From this point they sighted and spilled over 

 into America, using the Diomede Islands as resting places on their 

 transit, if this were during the period of the existence of the Ber- 

 ing Strait, and followed the food supply down what is now the 

 Alaskan coast, without realizing that they had discovered anything 

 more than an outlying island. 



A paper was prepared on the Life of Jeronimo, Apache Indian 

 Chief, and the Indian leader whose expeditions probably cost the 

 United States Govermnent more money and trouble than did those 

 of any other chieftain. The life and times of Jeronimo were 

 minutely searched, and data were compiled in chronological order. 

 The material of this paper is especially interesting to the American 



