REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



EXPLORATIONS. 



The Institution has carried on some interesting ethnological and 

 natural-history explorations during the year, as noticed in detail on 

 other pages in the reports on the National Museum and the Bureau of 

 Ethnology. 



I will here call special attention to the benefit that has been derived 

 from the explorations made by Dr. William L. Abbott and by Mr. 

 William Astor Chanler and Lieut, von Hohnel in Africa and India. 

 Many valuable ethnological and natural-history objects which they 

 have collected on these expeditions have been courteously placed in the 

 National Museum as additions to the collection they had previously con- 

 tributed. 



In the Azores Prof. William Trelease has gathered some interesting 

 natural-history specimens. 



Lieut. Wirt Kobinson, U. S. A., has made large collections of mam- 

 mals and pottery in Florida, and Mr. Mark B. Kerr has contributed a 

 collection of fossils from Ecuador. 



Explorations have been continued among the aboriginal villages 

 in northeastern Arizona. Some particularly interesting explorations 

 were made in Arizona and Sonora (Mexico) among the Papago and Seri 

 Indians, where a number of prehistoric ruins were discovered with 

 extensive irrigation works, and studies were made of the arts and cus- 

 toms of those hitherto little-known Indians. 



Ethnological researches were also carried on among the Kathlamet 

 Indians of the lower Columbia region and among the Kiowa and 

 other plains Indians in Indian Territory. 



Explorations begun during May in the Eed Bock country, southwest 

 of Flagstaff, Ariz., by Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, as a part of the work of 

 the Bureau of Ethnology, have resulted in the discovery of a group of 

 extensive cliff ruins hitherto unknown to archaeologists and not 

 despoiled by white men, and excavations in that region were in prog- 

 ress at the close of the fiscal year. 



PUBLICATIONS. 



The plan of organization adopted by the Begents in 1847 contem- 

 plated the publication of a series of reports giving an account of the 

 new discoveries in science and of the changes made from year to year 

 in all branches of knowledge not strictly professional, and a second 

 series of separate treatises on subjects of general interest, consisting 

 of valuable memoirs translated from foreign languages, or of articles 

 prepared under the direction of the Institution. 



Three series of publications have actually been established, the Con- 

 tributions to Knowledge, the Miscellaneous Collections, and the Annual 

 Beports, the first two being printed at the expense of the Institution, 

 while the reports are Government documents. The Institution also 



