XVni BUKEAU OF AMERICAN P:THN0L0GY 



OFFICE WORK 



Ml" J. N. B. Hewitt, ethnologist, has continued the 

 preparation and proof reading of part 1 of his nionograi)h 

 on Iroquoian Cosmology, which is to appear in the Twenty - 

 first Annual Report. The reading of the galleys of the 

 interlinear translation and the free English translations of 

 the Onondaga, the Seneca, and the Mohawk versions of 

 this cosmology occupied a large portion of his time during 

 the year. Extensive revision was required on account of 

 the premature ti'ansmission of the manuscript to the 

 printer in 1002. This caused much delay, l)ut it was con- 

 sidered advisable to permit the delay rather than to have 

 the paper published in unsatisfactory form. 



As custodian of linguistic manuscrij^ts, Mr Hewitt, 

 assisted by Miss Smedes, continued the work of revising 

 and bringing up to date the card catalogue of the lin- 

 guistic and other manuscripts in the archives of the 

 Bureau. This card catalogue was originally prepared in 

 1896-97 liy Mr Hewitt, with the assistance of the late 

 Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, anjl in this work the manuscripts 

 were classified under three main heads : First, the author 

 or collector; second, the tribe, band, or village; and, 

 third, the linguistic family — all under one alphabet. The 

 cross-reference catalogue of the names of tril>es and vil- 

 lages noted in the manuscripts is of great use for com- 

 parison and research and for determining the number and 

 distribution of the manuscripts among the various lin- 

 guistic families. In the present revision the work con- 

 sists in making a duplicate copy of the card descriptive 

 of the manuscript, which duplicate is pasted on the jacket 

 or package containing the manuscript. A number is 

 affixed to the original card, to the duplicate, and to the 

 manuscrii)t itself for the purpose of ready identification. 

 New cards are being made for manuscripts acquired since 

 the completion of the original catalogue in 1897. This 

 scheme has been applied to the manuscrii)ts l)elonging to 

 the Algonquian, the Athapascan, and the Iroquoian fam- 



