104 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 
foundation that not only the past appropriations but also 
the prospective expenditures by Congress are more than 
justified. The earlier work covered a limited scope; it 
pointed out the field for future work. It now remains for 
the comparative ethnologist to connect the various problems 
of man and his culture and to shed new light on what still 
remains unsolved. By law the ethnological research of 
the staff of the bureau is limited to the American Indians 
and the aborigines of Hawaii. The logical outcome is the 
enlargement of the Bureau of American Ethnology into a 
bureau devoted to the study of all races. 
Even in studying the Indians there are great regions of 
South America which are practically unknown to the 
ethnologist. South America, next to Central America, con- 
tains examples of probably the highest culture that has ever 
been attained by the American race. I refer, of course, to 
the civilization of the great empire of the Incas, extending 
from the Isthmus of Panama to southern Chile. In this 
prolific field the bureau has done comparatively little, and 
the time is now ripe for an extensive exploration in that field. 
No less important in South America is the area inhabited 
by wild tribes, such as the Matto Grosso and other regions 
east of the mountains. The remarkable similarity of the 
culture of the Indians in Argentina and that of the Pueblos 
especially pleads for more thorough investigation of the 
former area. The great valley of the Amazon, that has 
attracted the ethnologist since the wonderful voyage of 
Alex. Von Humboldt at the beginning of the last century, 
still holds out new problems. 
The bureau will soon issue a remarkably complete work by 
Dr. Walter E. Roth on British Guiana, which probably will 
be one of the finest it has ever published. It adds much to 
our knowledge, but no more important fact than the magni- 
tude of the numerous fields remaining to be investigated in 
northern South America. The languages, sociology, religion, 
arts, history, and archeology of almost every country in 
South America demand research. Here we have a great 
continent awaiting the student of the antiquity and cultural 
relationship of the American race. 
