ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT XXXV 



able reduction in the nunil)er of l>aek reports tlii'ouiih 

 the constantly increasing jniblic demand for ethnolcjgie 

 literature. 



NECROLOGY 



Frank Hamilton Cushing 



It is with much sorrow that I have to report the death 

 of Frank Hamilton Cushing, ethnologist in the Bureau, 

 on April 10, 1900. 



Frank Hamilton Cushing was born in Northeast, Penn- 

 sylvania, July 22, 1857. At first a physical weakling, he 

 drew away from the customary associations of childhood 

 and youth and fell into a remarkable companionship with 

 nature; and as the growth of. the frail body lagged, his 

 mental powers grew in such wise as to separate him still 

 further from more conventional associates. In childhood 

 he found ' ' sermons in stones and books in running 

 brooks '' ; and in youth his school was the forest about his 

 father's homestead in central New York. There his taste 

 for nature was intensified, and the habit of interpreting 

 things in accordance with natural principles, rather than 

 conventional axioms, grew so strong as to control his later 

 life. Meantime, relieved of the constant waste of men- 

 tality through the friction of social relation, his mind 

 gained in vigor and force; he became a genius. 



At 9 years of age Cushing's attention was attracted l)y 

 Indian arrowpoints found in his neighborhood, and he 

 began a collection which grew into a museum and labora- 

 tory housed in a wigwam erected by him in a retired ]>art 

 of the family homestead ; and his interest and knowledge 

 grew until at 18 he went to Cornell already an expert 

 capable of instructing the teachers. Perhaps by reason 

 of his close communion with nature, he early fell into a 

 habit of thought not unlike that of the primitive arrow 

 maker, and even before he knew the living Indian, grew 

 into sympathy with Indian art, Indian methods, Indian 

 motives. So, in his wigwam laboratory and later at Cor- 

 nell and elsewhere, he began to i-eproduce chipped stone 

 arrow points and other aboriginal artifacts by ]>rocesses 



