Jb'EBKUABY 7, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



211 



the range. The 4,200-foot contour, the 

 level of the lowest portion of the lake bot- 

 tom, occurs along Rogue River at a dis- 

 tance of less than 12 miles from the rim 

 of the lake. The correlative lavas might 

 perhaps be expected to be daeites closely 

 related to the final flow of Mt. Mazama, 

 but on Rogue River no such lavas were 

 seen, — they are generally basalt; nor is 

 there any suggestion of the escape of such 

 an enormous mass of lava as recently as 

 the time of the great collapse. Whether 

 or not we are able to discover the corre- 

 sponding effusion, there seems no reason- 

 able doubt that Mt. Mazama was once a 

 reality and that it was wrecked by engulf- 

 ment. J. S. Diller. 



U. S. Geological Survey. 



THE TEACHING OF ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE 

 UNITED STATES.* 



Theee is a feeling among students of 

 anthropology that official instruction in 

 that field has not kept pace with the growth 

 of societies and museums of anthropology, 

 as well as with the ever-increasing volume 

 of literature pertaining to the subject. A 

 science which is rapidly filling our mu- 

 seums and now occupies so much space 

 in current publications should have an 

 exponent at every important seat of learn- 

 ing. 



The past decade has, however, witnessed 

 such rapid strides in the progress of an- 

 thropological teaching that fears for the 

 future of this particular field of activity 

 may, after all, prove groundless. 



Nearly three years ago I began to collect 

 information on the extent of instruction in 

 anthropology in Europe and the United 

 States. The results were embodied in a 

 paperf that was read before Section H at 



•Read at Denver before Section H of the Amer- 

 ican Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 August 29, 1901. 



t Science, December 22, 1899, pp. 910-917. 



the Columbus meeting, August, 1899, and 

 which led to the appointing of a commit- 

 tee to consider ways and means of further- 

 ing instruction in anthropology in our own 

 institutions of learning. The members of 

 the original committee appointed by Vice- 

 President Wilson were W J McGee, of 

 Washington, chairman; Frank Russell, of 

 Cambridge; and George Grant MacCurdy, 

 of New Haven. Two additional members, 

 Franz Boas, of New York, and W.- H. 

 Holmes, of Washington, were appointed 

 later and, at the New York meeting in 

 1900, the committee of five was made a 

 special committee of the Association, 

 ' Committee on the teaching of anthropol- 

 ogy in America.' 



This committee is at present preparing 

 a circular, the object of which is to set 

 forth the aims, scope and importance of 

 anthropology, as well as its place in higher 

 education. At a recent committee meet- 

 ing held in Wasliington it was decided 

 that such a circular note, to be of the high- 

 est value, should be based on the latest and 

 fullest information relative to the extent 

 and trend of instruction in anthropology. 

 Having already published one paper on the 

 subject, I was appointed to bring that 

 paper up to date so far as it related to the 

 United States. 



A circular note of inquiry was addressed 

 to one hundred and twenty-one of our most 

 important universities, colleges and medic- 

 al schools. The number and character of 

 the responses have been very gratifying. 

 Of the one hundred and twenty-one institu- 

 tions 31* offer instruction in anthropology, 

 36 do not, and 54 have not yet been heard 

 from. 



This is a vast improvement over the con- 

 ditions which prevailed in 1899, so far as 

 we had knowledge of them, as may be seen 

 by comparison with the following table pre- 

 pared two years ago : 



* Including Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. 



