REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 37 



vations and depressions of the surface of the country are widely scat- 

 tered, and unless an effort be made to collect them will ultimately be 

 lost. Previous to the connexion of the Institution with this enterprise, 

 circulars were sent by the Coast Survey to engineers and directors 

 of public works, in answer to which replies were received giving the 

 elevation of a large number of points. Since this connexion another 

 circular has been issued, to which a large additional number of an- 

 swers have been received. The whole number of points heard from 

 is about 9,000. Many of the replies to the circulars have been ac- 

 companied by valuable topographical information and maps, some of 

 which, as testified by the contributors, were rescued from the obliv- 

 ion which has been the fate of the records of many of the earlier sur- 

 veys. For the exhibition of these points, in connexion with the to- 

 pography of the country, it is proposed to have them plotted on a 

 map consisting of two sheets, with a projection of ¥ o-o-J-oo"o* O ne 

 sheet is to show the surface east of the Rocky mountains, the lines 

 of water courses, and is to be filled up from the best existing maps; the 

 western sheet is to be copied from the map of the same scale, issued 

 from the office of the Pacific Railroad explorations. An accurate out- 

 line map of the United States on this scale will be of great import- 

 ance as a base-chart on which to delineate the result of various other 

 statistical inquiries which have been instituted by this establishment. 

 Mr. Lewis H. Morgan, of Rochester, New York, having studied for 

 several years the ethnological peculiarities of the Indians of the 

 North American continent, has discovered among them a system of 

 relationship which he wishes to compare with the systems of con- 

 sanguinity existing among the natives of other countries, and the 

 Institution, at his request, in order to aid in this research, has dis- 

 tributed circulars to our consuls, missionaries, and ethnologists in 

 various parts of the world. The peculiar system of relationship of 

 the Iroquois, one of the principal families of American Indians first 

 attracted the attention of Mr. Morgan. The fundamental idea of this 

 system, which is carried out with great logical rigor, is, that the bond 

 of consanguinity is never suffered to lose itself in the ever diverging 

 collateral lines — the degrees of relationship are never allowed to pass 

 beyond that of first cousins; after that the collateral lines are merged 

 in the lineal lines, so that the son of a cousin becomes a nephew, 

 and the son of this nephew becomes a grandson. This principle ex- 

 tends upwards as well as downwards, so that the brother of a man's 



