EXPLORATIONS AND FIELD-WORK OE THE 

 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION IN 1921 



INTRODUCTION 



The exploration and field-work conducted by the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution is one of the means employed for the " increase and diffusion 

 of knowledge," the purpose of the Institution as stipulated in the 

 will of James Smithson, its founder. Attention is directed whenever 

 possible to regions which have previously been imperfectly explored 

 from a scientific point of view, and during the seventy-five years of 

 its existence, the Institution's field parties have been able to make 

 notable additions to existing knowledge as well as to provide vast col- 

 lections of biological, zoological, and anthropological material for the 

 exhibition and study series of the LTnited States National JNIuseum, a 

 branch of the Institution. 



During the past year, the effectiveness of the Institution's limited 

 funds for this work has been so reduced by the prevailing high costs 

 that it was not possible to take part in as many expeditions as is 

 customary. The more important of those which did take the field are 

 briefly described in the present pamphlet, which serves as an announce- 

 ment of the results obtained, many of the expeditions being later 

 treated more fully in the various series of publications under the direc- 

 tion of the Institution. The photographs here reproduced were for the 

 most part taken by the field-workers themselves. 



GEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES 

 The geological work by Secretary Charles D. Walcott in the 

 Canadian Rockies was in continuation of that of the field seasons of 

 1919, 1920, for the purpose of securing data on the pre-Devonian 

 strata of the Sawback range in Ranger Brook Canyon, and a recon- 

 naissance of the pre-Devonian formations to the northwest as far as 

 the headwaters of the North Eork of the Saskatchewan River, Alberta. 

 The season was an unusually cold and stormy one. The party 

 started with a pack train from Banff, June 30, and returned September 

 30. During this period there were 35 stormy days, 28 cloudy and cold 

 days (20° to 45°) and more or less snow fell on 20 days in August and 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections Vol. 72, No. 15 



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