8 COLUMBIAN HISTORICAL EXPOSITION AT MADRID. 



Commissioner General; James C. Welling, LL. D., president of Colum 

 bian University, and George Brown Goode, LL. D., assistant secretary 

 of the Smithsonian Institution, Commissioners; Lieut. John C. Colwell, 

 United States Navy, special disbursing officer; Mr. William E. Curtis, 

 and Prof. Thomas Wilson, assistants; Mr. Stewart Culin. secretary, 

 and Mr. Walter Hough, assistant. 



Dr. Welling was, unfortunately, obliged to resign at a very early 

 period, by which the Commission was deprived of all the advantages 

 of his ripe scholarship and sound judgment; and Dr. Goode, soon 

 after reaching Madrid, found himself compelled, through physical 

 disability, to return to the United States. The loss thus sustained 

 by the Commission of two gentlemen so eminent in their respective 

 domains, was severely felt, the more so from the fact that, for the 

 time being, it was irreparable. Later on, Prof. Thomas Wilson, by 

 reason of family affliction, returned to the United States, which reduced 

 the actual working force to but two members, Messrs. Culin and 

 Hough. Fortunately, there was at this juncture an important acces 

 sion to the party in the person of Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, whose wide 

 reputation and high standing in the world of science renders any spe 

 cial notice here unnecessary. Dr. Brinton was commissioned by the 

 President as successor to Dr. Welling. Lieut. J. C. Colwell, United 

 States Navy, was detached February 2, 1893. 



The Spanish Government, in pursuance of a royal decree under date 

 of January 9, 1891, provided for a series of international celebrations, 

 prominent among which were the two joint historical expositions held 

 in Madrid one the Exposition Hi storico- Americana, the other the Ex 

 position Historico-Europea. This report deals with the former only. 



The Historic American Exposition was intended to illustrate the 

 state of civilization of the New World in the precolumbian, Columbian, 

 and postcoluinbian periods; while in the Historic European Exposition 

 was exhibited the evidences of the civilization of Europe, or, more par 

 ticularly, that of the Iberian Peninsula, at the time when the New 

 World Y&S discovered and colonized. It was expected that, by the aid 

 of these exhibitions, students and visitors generally would be enabled 

 to understand the state of artistic and industrial civilization in Europe 

 and in America during this important epoch, and to realize the influence 

 which the one may have exercised upon the other. 



The period which the distinguished scholars in charge of the His 

 toric European Exposition desired especially to illustrate was that 

 during which American history was most closely identified with that 

 of Europe. This, it was assumed, extends from 1492, when the Spanish 

 caravels first reached the Antilles, to 1620, when the Mayflower, set 

 ting forth from a Dutch seaport, brought the English Puritans to what 

 is now known as New England. 



&quot; The Columbian Epoch,&quot; extending from the end of the fifteenth 

 century through the first third of the seventeenth, includes most of 



