28 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1926 
sissippi, particular attention being given to 21 mounds on Pecan 
Island in Vermilion Parish, from which considerable cultural mate- 
rial and a number of skulls were obtained. Mr. Collins then located 
the sites of several historic Choctaw villages in eastern Mississippi, 
and secured physical measurements on 72 living Choctaw. 
Dr. J. W. Gidley conducted for the bureau an exploration of the 
fossil beds near Melbourne and Vero, Fla. Many fossil bones were 
collected, including some new forms, and a number of Indian mounds 
were visited and examined. 
Dr. Ale’ Hrdlicka was sent to Alaska for the purpose of studying 
the archeology of Seward Peninsula, in the vicinity of Nome, but 
this part of his work did not begin until the close of the fiscal year 
and the results will be reported on next year. 
The bureau issued one publication during the year—the Fortieth 
Annual Report, containing a number of papers on the Fox Indians 
by Dr. Truman Michelson—and a number of publications were in 
press or in preparation at the close of the year. There were distrib- 
uted 12,993 copies of bureau publications. 
INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGES 
The number of packages of governmental, scientific, and literary 
publications handled by the International Exchange Service during 
the fiscal year 1926 was 480,776, an increase of more than 12,000 over 
the preceding year. ‘These packages reached a total weight of 
558,493 pounds, representing more than 10 per cent increase in 
weight over last year. Over 2,500 boxes were required for the ship- 
ment of publications to foreign exchange agencies for distribution 
abroad. 
The depository of United States governmental documents in China 
has been changed from the American-Chinese Publication Exchange 
Department in Shanghai to the Metropolitan Library in Peking. 
Iceland and the Dominican Republic have been added during the 
year to the list of depositories of partial sets of our governmental 
documents. Steps were taken by the exchange service, at the request 
of several depositories, to have the regular series of governmental 
documents delivered more promptly than has been customary, and 
several letters of appreciation of this action were received from 
abroad by the Smithsonian Institution. Sets of United States offi- 
cial documents are now sent to 101 foreign depositories, and 75 copies 
of the Congressional Record are exchanged for similar proceedings 
of foreign parliaments. 
In the report on the exchange service, appended hereto, is repro- 
duced a circular describing the service and presenting the rules 
under which packages are received for distribution. 
