XIV ANNUAL REPORT OP THE DIRECTOR 



field work, but supplementary to it, being the study, compila- 

 tion, and arrangement of material obtained in the field, with 

 such additions as can be procured from literature and corre- 

 spondence, and with the preparation of i*equisite illustrations. 



PUBLICATIONS. 



Three papers were published during the year, in the order 

 given below. A small edition of each was issued separately, 

 but the main publication comprised the three papers together 

 (separate paginations being preserved) as Volume V, "Con- 

 tributions to North American Ethnology," a quarto volume of 

 421 pages, exclusive of 53 full-page plates, and containing 105 

 illustrations in the text. 



OBSERVATIONS ON CUP-SHAPED AND OTHER LAPIDA- 

 RIAN SCULPTURES, BY CHARLES RAU. 



Dr. Charles Rau is well known to the scientific world as 

 Curator of the Department of Archaeology in the Smithsonian 

 Institution, and as the author of several standard works in the 

 branch of study to which he has long been devoted. His 

 present paper discusses a remarkable and widely distributed 

 class of ancient sculptured objects, called by the French 

 pierres a ecuettes, and by the Germans Schalensteine, to which 

 he has applied the English term "cup-stones." They may be 

 described as stones or rocks in which cup-shaped cavities, vary- 

 ing in size, number, and arrangement, have been made by the 

 hand of man. They are often associated with engraved fig- 

 ures of a different character. A point of much interest re- 

 garding them is that they are found in the United States and 

 in other pai'ts of the Western hemisphere, in form and under 

 conditions analogous to those long known in the Eastern con- 

 tinent as subjects of antiquarian research affording little sat- 

 isfactory result. This is an additional example of the many 

 similarities in prehistoric practices between the Old World and 

 the New from which diverse theories are deduced. 



Dr. Rau has described and analyzed, with acumen and eru- 



