NO. I ETHNOGEOGRAPHIC BOARD BENNETT 53 



answered with the aid of a dictionary or published vocabulary — 

 sources of information apparently unknown to the requesters. 



A few miscellaneous questions were answered after a bit of 

 search and consultation. Are the cotton warehouses in Alexandria 

 fireproof ? Are there any stamps or paper currency of the Formosan 

 government which existed for 3 weeks in 1895? 



Materials 



Many of the requests could be answered by sending materials 

 which the Board had accumulated or prepared. The types of lists 

 and materials distributed by the Board are discussed elsewhere, so 

 that here it is merely mentioned that the circulation was enlarged on 

 the basis of special requests. The staff answered some inquiries by 

 sending a copy of a report prepared for some other agency. Unless 

 the requesting agency specifically restricted distribution, the Board 

 considered all its reports available to any agency. 



No special effort was made to accumulate files of maps and photo- 

 graphs, but, by the very nature of its activities, the Board came into 

 possession of such materials. Through personal contacts the Board 

 received from Amos Burg and Junius Bird a large series of South 

 American pictures, all carefully labeled, which were turned over to 

 the Army and Navy. Raymond Kennedy sent in a gazetteer and maps 

 of the Southwest Pacific, and E. M. Loeb turned over photostats of 

 his maps of the west coast of Sumatra. Archeologists sent in photo- 

 graphs of the Dodecanese and other Aegean Islands which were 

 gratefully received by the Navy, and Dr. Mary Swindler of Bryn 

 Mawr loaned a set of Greek maps which the Army Map Service 

 for a long time had been trying to locate. 



In some cases the photographs and maps received by the Board 

 were reproduced in the Smithsonian photographic laboratory and 

 copies sent to the Army, Navy, or Map Service. Usually, however, 

 the originals were sent to the Army or Navy where copies were made. 

 The correspondence involved in these transactions, the necessity of 

 keeping track of the materials, collecting and returning them to the 

 owners, proved too much for the small staff to handle conveniently. 

 This difficulty was solved by the later arrangement, already described, 

 of enclosing Army and Navy franks and asking the owners of such 

 materials to send them in directly to the offices of Military or 

 Naval Intelligence. 



The Board also filled a number of requests for the originals of il- 

 lustrations used in its own and in the Smithsonian publications. 



