REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 41 



boring parts of Ontario, collecting linguistic and sociologic data required for the 

 full comparative study of the Iroquoian tribes. He was also able to obtain new and 

 valuable additions to the series of creation myths for which these Indians are nota- 

 ble, and through which their names have become entensively incorporated in the 

 literature of the world. 



On November 4, 1897, Mr. J. B. Hatcher, of Princeton University, who was about 

 to sail for Argentina, was specially commissioned to make collections among the 

 Indian tribes of South America; and toward the end of the fiscal year he sent his 

 first shipment of material, representing the natives of Patagonia, whose character- 

 istics have attracted attention for centuries. 



On January 11, 1898, Mr. Gerard Fowke was employed temporarily to make archaeo- 

 logical surveys and excavations in an interesting locality in Kentucky. These exca- 

 vations were particularly successful, yielding a considerable quantity of valuable 

 archseologic material, which has been placed in the National Museum. 



Shortly before the opening of the fiscal year Dr. Robert Stein, attached to Lieut. 

 R. E. Peary's Arctic expedition for the purpose of exploring a little-known stretch 

 of the coast of western Greenland, was commissioned to make archaeological 

 researches and collections. He was landed on August 10, 1897, and remained until 

 September 1, when he was taken up by Lieutenant Peary on his return trip. During 

 Dr. Stein's stay on a part of the coast not now inhabited, he discovered abundant 

 traces of ancient habitation by the Eskimo, and collected a quantity of somatologic 

 and other material. 



The objective material collected during these explorations has been placed in the 

 National Museum; the new data have been added to the archives and incorporated 

 in memoirs now in preparation or completed for publication, as indicated in other 

 paragraphs. The scientific results of the work are summarized in the following 

 pages. 



Office Research. 



work in esthetology. 



Mr. Frank Hamilton Cushing has continued the study and arrangement of his 

 collections of aboriginal handiwork from western Florida, and has made progress in 

 the preparation of a report on the prehistoric key-dwellers of the eastern shore of 

 the Gulf of Mexico. During the greater part of the year the collections were kept 

 in the Museum of Archaeology of the University of Pennsylvania, where they were 

 shipped on account of the inadequate space then afforded by the National Museum 

 for unpacking and assembling ; toward the end of the fiscal year, as the capacity of 

 the Museum was increased by the introduction of galleries, the greater part of the 

 collection was brought to Washington and arranged in cases and on tables for pur- 

 poses of comparison and study. In the course of his work Mr. Cushing has made 

 extensive comparisons between his specimens and those obtained by other archaeolo- 

 gists from different portions of the United States, and the comparative studies are 

 highly significant. The Florida collections are rendered exceptionally valuable by 

 reason of the large number of specimens made from and decorated with animal and 

 vegetal substances, which are ordinarily perishable, though preserved in high per- 

 fection in the muck-beds associated with the Florida Keys. Accordingly, the material 

 serves better than any other collection thus far made to connect the records of the 

 early explorers with the observations of later times ; at the same time it serves to 

 round out knowledge concerning the pre-Columbian handiwork of the Indians in all 

 of the softer, more flexible, and more easily destructible substances, and accordingly 

 permits comparison of designs wrought in a wide range of materials. 



Dr. J. Walter Fewkes has continued the preparation of reports on his archaeo- 

 logic researches in Arizona and New Mexico. These researches were undertaken 

 primarily for the purpose of enriching the collections of aboriginal art products for 

 the National Museum. The large collections embrace a remarkably complete series 



