BULLETIN 39, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. [6] 



The work carried on b}^ physical anthropologists consists of investi- 

 gating and teaching. For both these, a part of the work has to be 

 done on living and a part on dead representatives of races, tribes, or 

 other groups of mankind. 



The living are examined, measured, photographed, and cast, either 

 in laboratories or in the field; but dead bodies or anj^ parts of them 

 can be studied or prepared for study, demonstration, or exhibition, 

 onl}^ in laboratories specially fitted for the purpose. They must be 

 gathered from hospitals, morgues, and dissecting rooms; cleaned, 

 catalogued, and numbered; and then properly stored for preservation, 

 reference, or further investigation. It is plain that such material 

 can be utilized profitably onl}^ in large institutions which can furnish 

 and maintain laboratories, give proper care to the material, and have 

 space for exhibition and storage. 



The number of even the more important races, tribes, and other 

 groups of mankind is large, and for proper research, instruction, or 

 exhibition, each group must be represented hj many individuals. The 

 better any group is represented in numbers the more valuable will be 

 the results in every direction. It is for these reasons that great col- 

 lections in physical anthropology are needed and sought b}^ such insti- 

 tutions as the United States National Museum and other establishments 

 where this branch of science is pursued. 



The necessity for large and comprehensive assemblage of proper 

 material for physical anthropology has been recognized since the 

 times of Blumenbach (1753-1840), with the result that to-da}'' every 

 important museum or institution of natural histor}^ or anatom}^ has a 

 racial collection of skulls, bones, etc. There are a number of such in 

 Europe, headed by that of the School of Anthropology in Paris; and 

 there are several in the United States, principally that in the United 

 States National Museum (a larger part of which was, up to 1898, pre- 

 served in the Army Medical Museum); and those in the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences, Philadelphia; in the Peabodj^ Museum, Cambridge, 

 Massachusetts, and in the American Museum of Natural Histor}^, 

 New York City. The number of specimens in each one of these col- 

 lections reaches into the thousands, and yet not only individuallj^, but 

 even collectively, they are far from properly representing even the 

 more important actual groups of mankind; while the representatives 

 of the man of the past are few indeed. Leaving other than American 

 collections out of consideration, these are as a whole fairly rich in 

 North American and Peruvian skulls; poor in whole skeletons; very 

 poor in material from Alaska, the Antilles, Central and South America, 

 as well as from all parts of the world outside of America; and almost 

 absolutely wanting in such parts of the body as the brain, or other 

 soft orphans and iii racial fetal material. 



