56 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 76 



rail from this point in the semi-arid coastal plain to the capital, San 

 Jose, lying at an altitude of 1.140 meters in the cool iiicscta central, 

 is through a region remarkably diverse as to physiography. From 

 San Jose three principal trips were made: First, to La Palma, a 

 classical botanical locality on the cloud-drenched southwestern slopes 

 of Irazti volcano ; next to Santa Clara, in the mountains a few leagues 

 south of Cartago ; then to \'ara Blanca. lying high up in an almost 

 unexplored region between the volcanoes Poas and Barba. Special 

 attention was here given to ferns and orchids, both groups being 



Fig. 57. — Street scene in Puntarenas, the Pacific port of Costa Rica. 



extremely abundant both as to species and individuals, and many new 

 and interesting species in these and other groups were collected. The 

 flora of the upper slopes of the interior mountain region appears well- 

 nigh inexhaustil)le and will long be a most profitable field for botani- 

 cal exploration. 



STUDIES ON EARLY MAN IN EUROPE 



During the summer and early autumn of 1923, Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, 

 curator of the division of physical anthropology, United States Na- 

 tional Museum, spent three and a half months in revisiting the 

 numerous important sites of early man in western and central 

 Europe, and the institutions in which the skeletal remains of ancient 



