NOTE ON THE ACCOMPANYING PAPERS 
With the exception of the article by Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, “ De- 
signs on Prehistoric Hopi Pottery,” no mention has been made in 
previous administrative reports of the papers here published which 
are in line with existing plans of the bureau. 
The paper by Dr. Melvin Randolph Gilmore on “ Uses of Plants 
by the Indians of the Missouri River Region” belongs to the same 
series as “ Ethnobotany of the Zuni Indians” (Thirtieth Report of the 
Bureau of American Ethnology), and “ Ethnobotany of the Tewa 
Indians” (Bulletin 55). Intensive studies of the nature of food and 
medicinal plants of our Indians have come to be recognized as of 
practical and economic value. The American Indian has contributed 
many plants to the dietary of European nations, and there is every 
reason to believe that there are many more that could be adopted from 
him were their value as a food resource known; and although the 
customs of the natives of America are rapidly changing it is not too 
late to rescue from them a knowledge of the uses to which plants have 
been put by our aborigines. Doctor Gilmore’s paper is based upon 
original observations. In the opening chapter of his article he points 
out the value of ethnobotanic study and shows some of the influences 
of the flora on the human activities in the region considered. 
There is no more fascinating study in ethnology than that of the 
prehistory of the aborigines of this continent. The possibility of 
rescuing from the night of time unwritten chapters of Indian history 
by a study of Indian remains has attracted the attention of the staff 
of the bureau since its foundation, and to a long line of publications 
is now added an important contribution entitled a “ Preliminary 
Account of the Antiquities of the Region between the Mancos and 
La Plata Rivers in Southwestern Colorado,” by Mr. Earl H. Morris. 
In this preliminary report Mr. Morris considers many house re- 
mains, stone structures of a cruder masonry than those of the adja- 
cent Mesa Verde National Park, and lays the foundation of what may 
later be recognized as evidences of a new type indicating a pre- 
puebloan culture. He points out that the region studied belongs 
culturally within the horizon of the Mesa Verde area, finding many 
of the remains almost identical in character in the two areas. 
Two kinds of remains were left by prehistoric people from which 
may be drawn an imperfect picture of the manners and customs of 
an unlettered people living at an epoch before their written history 
began. These remains may be called major and minor antiquities, 
and the most important of the former are buildings, those of the latter 
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