REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 11 



environment, remaining as a result backward in education and in 

 other respects. He reports as follows on the results of his studies : 



. The work commenced at Bristol, Term., extended to Mountain City, and 

 farther on into the hills ; and its success was very largely due to the kind 

 offices and direct personal help of an old friend of the Smithsonian Institution, 

 Mr. Samuel L. King, of Bristol. For additional help the writer is indebted to 

 Mr. John Caldwell, of the same city. 



The work extended mainly to the men called for examination by the first 

 draft for the United States Army, and comprised 150 individuals. Both meas- 

 urements and observations were taken. Some of the men came from the lower 

 lands of the Bristol district and were kept apart, but a good number represented 

 the real mountaineers. 



It is too early to speak of the results of this interesting piece of research, 

 the data not having as yet been properly reduced and analyzed ; but it is 

 safe to say that these mountaineers represent no separate type of Americans. 

 In many cases they still show strong indications of their respective pre-Amer- 

 ican ancestry. Among the men there were seen some fine examples of 

 physique — willowy, clean-cut six-footers ; but there were also others of rather 

 feeble mental powers or nervous stability, which conditions, to some extent 

 possibly, are due to hereditary effects of alcoholism or to defective heredity of 

 other nature. 



The families of the mountaineers are remarkable in many cases for their 

 large size, and there were seen examples of longevity and virility which it 

 would be hard to find in our cities. 



There are all grades of " mountaineers " and no line of demarcation separates 

 them from the people in the lower lands, who are mostly of similar derivation 

 and sometimes of the same families. But as one proceeds into the wilds of the 

 mountains the population becomes sparser and more backward, the cultivated 

 patches of ground smaller in area, and the habitations poorer, until some of the 

 latter come to resemble the shacks of the southern negro. 



The poorer class of mountaineers frequently show characteristics partly due 

 to their backwardness in education and their isolation and partly, perhaps, to 

 hookworm disease or other abnormal conditions. Some of the young men are 

 types of slouchiness, such as would delight the artist, while the women disfigure 

 themselves by chewing snuff and frequently show uncouthness in dress, move- 

 ments, and behavior. But the people are hospitable and interesting. In the 

 course of a short ride of less than 2 miles through a sparsely settled gorge the 

 writer and his local companion had no less than four invitations to lunch — in 

 the other places there was no one at home. Their language and intonation are 

 characteristic and quaint, and the people seem to be full of old and local folk- 

 lore, the study of which would probably prove most delightful. Being largely 

 dependent on themselves and their few neighbors, they have also many anti- 

 quated and strange curative practices which would repay investigation. 



Their worst enemies are the isolation, " moonshine " whisky, and, in not a 

 few cases, undoubtedly a poor heredity. The Army draft will be a godsend to 

 many of the young men, some of whom can not even read or write ; but probably 

 few of those who will return will remain mountaineers. 



THE VANISHING INDIAN. 



Through the cooperation of the Institution and the American Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of Science, Dr. Hrdlicka in August, 



