ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT XXXV 
ACCOUNTS 
When the present Chief took charge of the office a 
clerk who had been transferred from one of the execu- 
tive departments occupied the position of custodian of 
accounts and property. It was ascertained during the 
spring that vouchers were being tampered with, and he 
was promptly arrested and indicted. 
A critical examination of the Bureau accounts thus 
became necessary, and all papers connected with disburse - 
ments were at once turned over to the disbursing officer 
of the Smithsonian Institution, who proceeded to give 
them the fullest scrutiny. One noteworthy result of this 
examination was the discovery of the fact that deficien- 
cies existed for the years 1901 and 1902, amounting to 
between $600 and $700. The accounts at the close of the 
present year were fortunately in such condition that a 
sufficient balance remains to liquidate this indebtedness, 
if Congress so desires. At the close of the year the 
accounting work was again placed in charge of the 
Bureau; and, with its other affairs, is now reorganized 
and put on a proper business footing. 
NECROLOGY 
JoHN WESLEY POWELL 
John Wesley Powell, founder and director of the Bureau 
of American Ethnology, was born Mareh 24, 1834, at 
Mount Morris, N. Y. He died September 23, 1902, at his 
summer home in Haven, Me., and was buried in Arling- 
ton National Cemetery with the honors due to a soldier. 
His boyhood was spent mostly in the town of Jackson, 
Ohio, where his mind was first directed toward the study 
of nature by James Crookham, an eccentric but able 
teacher of the village youth. He was a student for brief 
periods in Jacksonville and Oberlin colleges, and, taking 
