890 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 414. 



museum, who has doue so much for anthro- 

 pology iu particuhir. 



At the afternoon session, the chair was 

 taken by the Due de Loubat, who spoke 

 briefly upon 'Mexican Manuscripts,' tak- 

 ing exception to the common opinion that 

 the monks who foUowed close in the wake 

 of the first Spanish iuA'aders were respons- 

 ible for the destruction of so many precious 

 manuscripts. For the few that have been 

 preserved, we are indebted largely to the 

 monks and to the Catholic institutions 

 where thej^ found shelter. The Duke also 

 argued for an American edition of Saha- 

 guh's work, the 'pre-Columbian Bible. ' He 

 then resigned the chair to Professor F. "W". 

 Putnam, who, after paying gracefiil trib- 

 utes to the late Thomas Wilson and IMajor 

 J. W. Powell, members of the council of 

 the congress, who have recently passed 

 away, gave an account of the American 

 Museiun of Natural History and the work 

 accomplished under its auspices during the 

 past ten years. That the museum was 

 able to carry on these extensive and fruitful 

 investigations has been due to the broad- 

 minded generosity of Henry Villard, Mrs. 

 Villard, Mr. and Mrs. C. P. Huntington, 

 Jlr. and Mrs. Jesup, the Due de Loubat, 

 Dr. F. E. Hyde and his sons Frederick 

 and Talbot Hyde. The Due de Loubat 

 and Dr. Hyde had also provided the funds 

 for the investigations in the Trenton 

 Gravel. The American Museum was de- 

 signed to occupy five times the space it does 

 at present. Professor Putnam also re- 

 ported on the excellent work of the Pea- 

 body IMiiseiim (Cambridge), which has done 

 so much to advance our knowledge of the 

 hieroglyphics and other monuments of 

 Central America. 



Bi'ief reports of a similar nature were 

 made by Dr. "W" J McGee for the Bureau 

 of Americau Ethnology (Washington), 

 Dr. W. J. Holland for the Carnegie l^Iu- 

 semn (Pittsburgh), Professor Stewart 



Culin for the Museiim of Science and Art 

 (Philadelphia), Professor Edward S. 

 Morse for the Museum at Salem, Pro- 

 fessor Frederick Starr for the Davenport 

 Academy of Natural Sciences, and Dr. 

 George A. Dorsey for the Field Columbian 

 Museiun (Chicago). 



Dr. McGee made special reference to the 

 work of Dr. Gatschet (who edited the 

 Trumbull dictionary to Eliot's Bible, now 

 iu press), Mr. Hewitt (Iroquoiau lexicog- 

 raphy and primitive philosophy), Miss 

 Alice Fletcher (Pawnee ceremonials), Mr. 

 James Mooney (ethnology of the Kiowa 

 and other Plains Indians, particularly their 

 'heraldry'). Dr. J. Walter Fewkes (among 

 the Pueblos, and more recently, in Porto 

 Rico), and of Dr. Franz Boas, now con- 

 sulting philological expert for the bureau. 

 Several reports and a number of bulletins, 

 rich in new scientific materials, are now in 

 press. Dr. McGee spoke in eloquent terms 

 of the loss the biu-eau and anthropology in 

 America had sustained in the death of 

 jMajor Powell. 



Dr. Holland detailed some of the local 

 archeological acti-\dties of the Carnegie 

 IMuseum in the Monongahela and Alle- 

 gheny valleys, in connection with a pro- 

 posed map of this section of western Penn- 

 sylvania. Professor Culin, in the course 

 of his remarks, expressed the opinion that 

 the evidence now at hand compelled belief 

 in long-continued and ancient intercom- 

 munication between America and Asia, 

 with the probabilities in favor of influence 

 from America to Asia and the Pacific 

 islands. Professor Morse announced that 

 the miiseiun in Salem, originally founded 

 by sea-captains, now contained the largest 

 Japanese collection in the world. Dr. 

 Dorsey, after sketching the origin of the 

 Field Columbian Museiun through the 

 stimulus of the Anthropological Depart- 

 ment of the World's Fair (under Professor 

 Putnam) and the generosity of Mr. Mar- 



