14 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887. 



exhaustive catalogue of the Eskimo collection in the National Museum, 

 with indications of the localities in which the specimens were obtained. 

 This geographical list is published in Section in of this report. It will 

 be especially serviceable to collectors in the Arctic regions, who will be 

 able at a glance to determine whether or not certain forms of imple- 

 ments are represented in the national collection. 



Mr. L. M. Turner, formerly a Signal Service observer in Alaska and 

 Labrador, has prepared for the use of this department an elaborate 

 manuscript report relating to the Eskimo objects collected by himself 

 and now in the Museum. 



Paymaster E. B. Webster, U. S. Navy, also an experienced Alaskan 

 traveler, was for six months detailed by the Navy Department for serv- 

 ice in the National Museum, and rendered valuable assistance to the 

 curator of ethnology. 



Among the studies in progress in this department two have been 

 brought to completion, and the results have been published in Section 

 in of this report in the form of illustrated papers upon "The Human 

 Beast of Burden" and "Cradles of the American Aborigines." 



The methods of classification and arrangement now experimentally 

 employed in the National Museum have given rise to much discussion, as 

 it was but natural that they should, since they are so thoroughly unlike 

 those employed in any of the other museums of the world. The con- 

 ditions of growth and the character of the collections in the Museum 

 have been from the start peculiar, and the adoption of novel means of 

 administration was found to be necessary. In the first separate report 

 upon Museum work, published in 1881, certain suggestions were made 

 which became the subject of vigorous criticism on the part of some of 

 the scientific journals. Passing reference has been made to this matter 

 in previous reports, and it is probable that a full discussion of the sub- 

 ject may be undertaken hereafter. During the present year a very 

 interesting debate has taken place in the columns of " Science" in regard 

 to the proper method of arrangement of ethnological collections. The 

 discussion was opened by Dr. Franz Boas, a German ethnologist, now 

 a resident of New York, and was participated in by Professor Mason, 

 Major J. W. Powell, and Mr. William H. Dall. 



SECTION OF AMERICAN ABORIGINAL POTTERY. 



Mr. W. H. Holmes, the curator of this department, has completed 

 his studies of the wonderful pottery collection from Chiriqui, in Nica- 

 ragua. He reports that much valuable new material has been acquired, 

 especially noteworthy having been that obtained through the agency 

 of the Bureau of Ethnology, in the collections purchased from Dr. 

 Edward Palmer and Mr. W. E. Curtis. 



Col. James Stevenson, of the Geological Survey, has transferred to 

 this department a series of Pueblo pottery, ancient and modern, col- 

 lected by himself in 1881, and Dr. Cyrus Thomas, of the Bureau of 



