SECRETARY'S REPORT 11 
amount of information on art subjects was furnished to visitors in 
person, as well as by mail and phone. Members of the staff lectured 
on art topics to several organizations, and six special art exhibitions 
were held during the year, for most of which catalogs were furnished 
by the organizations sponsoring the exhibitions. 
Freer Gallery of Art.—Additions to the collections included Chinese 
bronze, jade, lacquer, marble, and painting; Syrian glass; Syrian or 
Egyptian gold; Arabic manuscript; Persian manuscript, painting, and 
stone sculpture; Indian painting; and Turkish painting. The work 
of the professional staff was devoted to the study of new accessions 
and to research within the collection of Chinese, Japanese, Iranian, 
Arabic, and Indian materials. Reports were made upon 2,563 objects 
and 372 photographs of objects submitted to the Gallery for examina- 
tion, and 369 Oriental language inscriptions were translated. The 
repair and restoration of the walls of Whistler’s Peacock Room were 
completed early in the year, and work was begun on the ceiling. 
Visitors to the Gallery numbered 74,846 for the year, and 1,724 came 
to the Gallery offices for special purposes. Sixteen groups were given 
instruction in the exhibition galleries by staff members, and 13 lec- 
tures were given in art galleries and museums, before clubs, and to 
various associations. 
Bureau of American Ethnology.—Dr. M. W. Stirling, Director of 
the Bureau, devoted 4 months to a continuation of his archeological 
work in Panamé in cooperation with the National Geographic Society. 
Heretofore undescribed ceramic cultures were found at Utivé and 
Barriles, and much new information was obtained on the classic 
Chiriqui and Veraguas cultures. Dr. Frank H. H. Roberts, Jr., 
contmued to direct from Washington the very extensive operations 
of the River Basin Surveys, a unit of the Bureau created to rescue 
important archeological sites threatened by the construction of dams 
and the creation of river basin reservoirs. ‘The work was done in 
cooperation with the National Park Service, the Bureau of Reclama- 
tion, the Army Corps of Engineers, and local organizations. Surveys 
of threatened sites covered 69 reservoir areas in 21 States. Since 
the program started, 2,107 archeological sites have been located and 
recorded, and of these, 456 have been recommended for excavation 
or testing before they are destroyed by construction work. Dr. 
John P. Harrington continued his revision of the Maya grammar. 
Toward the end of the year he went to Old Town, Maine, to pursue 
ethnological and linguistic studies on the Abnaki Indians. Dr. Henry 
B. Collins, Jr., conducted archeological excavations at Frobisher Bay 
on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. Ruins were found of old 
Eskimo semisubterranean houses made of stones, whale bones, and 
turf, the evidence showing that the site has been occupied succes- 
