ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT LI 
Work on the Indvan cyclopedia—Even before the institution 
of the Bureau of American Ethnology, ethnologists generally 
recognized the need of definite information concerning the 
names, habitats, and relations of the aboriginal tribes, and 
several students had made essays toward the collection of such 
information in form for publication. A vast number of items 
containing such information may be found scattered through 
the literature commonly designated by the term “Ameri- 
cana.” The literature is voluminous and many of the published 
works are rare, while a considerable part of the material 
exists only in unique manuscripts. When the Bureau was 
organized, one of the lines of work projected was the col- 
lection of such information not only by research among the 
Indians themselves, but by examination of the literature and 
manuscripts. The bibliographic work undertaken in the 
Bureau and so long successfully carried forward by Mr Pilling 
was designed largely as a means to this end. In addition, all 
of the collaborators of the Bureau were instructed to obtain 
and record general facts pertaining to the tribes with whom 
they came in contact; and most of the collaborators of the 
Bureau have been employed from time to time in collecting 
and arranging the material. At first it was planned to arrange 
the material in the form of a synonymy, recording the accepted 
names in connection with the families or stocks, together with 
the great number of synonyms which have found their way 
into use, orally and in print. Early experience in the work 
indicated the desirability of incorporating collateral informa- 
tion in connection with the names, and for some time this plan 
was pursued; still later, as the material accumulated and came 
into constant use in manuscript form, it was found convenient 
to include Indian names other than tribal, and still further 
to increase the scope of the work. Meantime the name 
Synonymy was retained. When a definite plan was formu- 
lated for publication in a series of stock monographs, it was 
found that the designation employed for some years was inad- 
equate and misleading, and the term ‘“ Dictionary” came into 
use orally; but this term, too, seems too narrow, and it is 
thought best to arrange the material for printing in bulletin 
