436 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 402. 



ANTHROPOLOGY IN AMERICA. 

 Dr. a. C. Haddon's presidential address be- 

 fore the British Anthropological Institute was 

 entitled 'What the United States of America 

 is doing for Anthropology.' The address was 

 printed in the Journal of the institute and is 

 quoted in Nature. It reviews field work, mu- 

 seums and teaching at the universities, and 

 concludes as follows : 



It would be impossible to include within 

 the limits of a brief address an account of all 

 the work that is being done in anthropology 

 by the govermuent, by public and private in- 

 stitutions, or by individual effort in the United 

 States of America. Much as I should have 

 liked to have emphasized the interest exhibited 

 in the subject and the wonderful activity that 

 is being displayed, the bare enumeration of all 

 this activity would make a very weary chron- 

 icle. 



I must confess that I felt a not inconsider- 

 able amount of envy when on every hand I 

 witnessed this energy and then recalled the 

 apathy which pervades our own country. 



The American public is more intelligently 

 alive to the interest and importance of anthro- 

 pology than is our public. The exponents of 

 the science are energetic, enthiisiastic and 

 competent, and they succeed in gaining the 

 practical sympathy of wealthy merchants, 

 who are not averse to spending money freely 

 when they see that the money will be wisely 

 spent for the good of the state or of the city. 

 One cannot say that the wealthy Americans 

 are more intelligent than are our rich men, 

 but they do seem to appreciate the value of 

 learning to a much greater extent than do 

 ours. At all events, they respond more readily 

 to the very pressing need there is for the en- 

 dowment of research and of those institutions 

 which bring the knowledge of the expert down 

 to the comprehension of the masses. 



I am quite willing to admit that the fault 

 in this country may lie as much with the 

 specialist as with the capitalist. In any case 

 we have an inspiriting demonstration in the 

 United States of America of what can and 

 should be done in Great and Greater Britain, 

 and I venture to thanlv oiir American col- 

 leagues in the name of anthropological science 



for this good example of strenuous effort and 

 praiseworthy accomplishment. 



FORESTRY IN TEE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 

 A PRESS bulletin of the Biireau of Forestry 

 says that the Hawaiian Islands are in need of 

 foresters, and eager to secure them. Governor 

 Dole, who sees the immediate necessity of 

 caring for the island forests, has applied to 

 the Bureau of Forestry for expert men, to be 

 sent as soon as they can be spared. The 

 mountains are overrun by both wild and tame 

 cattle, which graze and trample on young 

 trees and destroy the ferns that protect the 

 ground. When this ground cover is removed 

 the soil rapidly loses its moisture and the 

 forest dies. Great areas of Hawaiian forest 

 have been utterly destroyed in this way. The 

 disappearance of so much forest on the island 

 of Hawaii has caused remarkable changes in 

 the flow of the streams. There are freshets 

 and floods now, followed by long, dry seasons 

 when the water does not run. Since much of 

 the sugar crop depends entirely on irrigation, 

 and since the irrigating ditches must draw 

 their water from the mountain streams, the 

 damage done the forest affects the prosperity 

 of the whole island. Forestry in Hawaii has 

 never been attempted by the government, and 

 the field will be an entirely new one. It will 

 have the support and confidence of the people, 

 who are eager for relief from the harm done 

 them by the failure of their irrigating ditches 

 to supply the sugar crops. 



On the island of Molokai — the leper island 

 — still more remarkable conditions prevail in 

 the forest. There the timber is grazed and 

 trampled to death not by wild cattle alone 

 but by herds of red deer, descended from a 

 few that were imported from England to stock 

 parks. The deer imported propagated beyond 

 the calculations of the inhabitants, escaped 

 to the woods, and, since there are no animals 

 to prey upon them, have increased to many 

 thousands. The American forester who un- 

 dertakes the care of the timber of Molokai 

 will have a problem entirely novel to his ex- 

 perience — the protection of forests from wild 

 animals. 



