96 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 368. 



conifer seedlings to be furnished from the 

 nurseries of the College Forest and to be 

 planted on waste areas in the Adirondack 

 Preserve. 



Dr. Fernow's explanation should suffice 

 not only to convince the intelligent but 

 misled reader of the shameful attack 

 against which he protests— and which, we 

 observe, was telegraphed from Watertown 

 — but even to instruct the most ignorant 

 and thoughtless, if not to silence the selfish, 

 obstructors of a policy which has com- 

 menced none too soon its endeavor to 

 remedy the apparently irretrievable and 

 fatal mischief which has done so much to 

 bring upon the State and the nation all the 

 ■ grievous results of deforestation. This is 

 one of those matters of applied science 

 which is of such overwhelming importance 

 as to justify the nation in making any 

 sacrifice of time and money, the State in 

 meeting every minutest requirement of its 

 Forester and the people in silencing 

 promptly and effectively every unpatriotic 

 citizen who seeks to make the highest in- 

 terests of the State subservient to his own 

 individual petty desires. 



FIELD WORK OF THE ETHNOLOGICAL DI- 

 VISION OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM 

 OF NATURAL HISTORY IN 1901. 



In the past year the principal part of 

 the field work of the Jesup North Pacific 

 Expedition, which was organized in 1897, 

 has been brought to a close. Parties were 

 in the field in the interior of British Co- 

 lumbia, on Vancouver Island, on Queen 

 Charlotte Islands, and in northeastern 

 Siberia. Mr. James Teit continued his 

 studies and collections among the Thomp- 

 son Indians and their neighbors. Mr. 

 George Hunt was at M'ork in northern 

 Vancouver Island. 



The principal undertaking of the expedi- 



tion on the Pacific coast of America was a 

 thorough investigation of the Haida In- 

 dians of Queen Charlotte Islands, which 

 was intrusted to Dr. John R. Swanton. Dr. 

 Swanton went to Queen Charlotte Islands 

 in September, 1900, and stayed among the 

 Haida for more than a year. His work was 

 eminently successful. He succeeded in un- 

 ravelling the intricate social organization 

 of the tribe, and in giving, for the first 

 time, thorouglily satisfactory explanations 

 of the significance of totem poles. He also 

 collected much information on the customs 

 and beliefs of the people, and brought back 

 an immense mass of mythology, recorded 

 in both dialects of the native language, as 

 well as grammatical notes sufficient to give 

 a clear insight into its structure. 



Unfortunately the interesting art of the 

 Indians of Queen Charlotte Islands has 

 practically disappeared. The raids of col- 

 lectors such as Swan, Jacobsen, not to men- 

 tion the later inroads of traders and other 

 collectors, have been such that hardly an 

 article of the old objects of this tribe is 

 left. This condition hampered Dr. SAvan- 

 ton very considerably, in so far as it made 

 his work of obtaining interpretations and 

 explanations of objects impossible. Al- 

 though he took with him a large number of 

 sketches and photographs of masks, rattles 

 and other objects of Haida provenience, it 

 was found almost impossible to obtain ex- 

 planations for any of these, because the 

 owners and users of these objects either 

 were dead or could not be foiind. 



The Siberian department of the expedi- 

 tion was in charge of Mr. Waldemar 

 Jochelson. The party consisted of Mr. and 

 Mrs. Jochelson, Mr. and Mrs. Bogoras, and 

 Mr. Alexander Axel rod. The party was ac- 

 companied by Mr. Buxton, who was in 

 charge of the zoological work. The ex- 

 pedition took the field in the spring of 

 1900. Mr. and Mrs. Bogoras, Mr. Axelrod 

 and Mr. Buxton returned a few weeks ago. 



