The Bureau of American Ethnology 369 



:and months in advance. The Weather 

 Bureau takes the public into confidence 

 in this matter, and does not claim to be 

 .able to do more than it is possible to 

 .accomplish. 



It is to be regretted , that the Ameri- 

 can press, the ablest and the most hero- 

 ically honest of any in the world, does 



in niany cases not only print the twad- 

 dle of long-range weather forecasting 

 frauds, but actually pa5^s for the privi- 

 lege. A large number of our rural 

 press is imposed upon by these fore- 

 casts, and in publishing them become 

 the disseminators of gross error instead 

 of enlightenment. 



WORK OF THE BUREAU OF AMERICAN 



ETHNOLOGY =^= 



By W J McGee, Ethnologist in Charge 



THE Bureau of American Eth- 

 nology was created to make 

 scientific researches among the 

 American aborigines. The work is con- 

 ducted under the direction of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, but the Bureau is 

 maintained wholh^ through 'appropria- 

 tions by the United States Government. 

 The office was iastituted in 1879, pri- 

 marily for the purpose of classifying the 

 native tribes in such manner as to guide 

 P'ederal and State officers in grouping 

 them on reservations ; and accordingly 

 the earlier researches were confined to 

 the territory of the United States. As 

 the work progressed, it was found neces- 

 sary to investigate the relations between 

 the tribes of this territory and those of 

 neighboring countries; and soon after the 

 institution of the Bureau the inquiries 

 were extended over the entire continent, 

 and the appropriations were made for 

 continuing researches in ' ' North Amer- 

 ican Ethnology." Still later it was 

 found that the ethnologic problems of 

 jSTorth America are inseparable from 

 those of the Antilles and South America ; 

 and about 1895 the field of research was 

 still further extended, and the appro- 

 priations are now made for "American 



Ethnology." Accordingly^ the present 

 field of the Bureau may be defined as 

 the Western Hemisphere. 



The special researches among the abo- 

 riginal tribes are necessarily confined 

 largel}^ to districts still occupied by the 

 tribesmen(though attention is constantly 

 given to aboriginal relics and works in 

 districts now occupied by whites) ; and 

 the extent of the operations is limited 

 by the annual appropriations. During 

 the past three j^ears field work has been 

 conducted in about one-third of the Fed- 

 eral States and Territories, while regular 

 or special collaborators have operated in 

 New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, British 

 Columbia, along the Alaskan frontier, 

 and on the western coast of Greenland, 

 as well as in several Mexican and Cen- 

 tral American States — Argentina and 

 Chile. The work is seldom of such 

 character as to involve surveying or 

 original mapping ; but extensive eth- 

 nologic collections are made, partly to 

 facilitate research and partly to illus- 

 trate its results. The collections are 

 preserved in the United States National 

 Museum. 



Designed primarily to develop a prac- 

 tical classification of the native tribes, the 



* Reprinted from " Verhandlungen Des VII. Internationalen Geographen-Kongresses in 

 J^erlin," 1899. 



