34 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



a score of the ablest students of this branch in the United States. 

 The arts and industries will also be treated in a separate handbook 

 now under way, and other branches are likewise in preparation for 

 publication. These include treaties and land sessions, sign language 

 and pictography, religions, social systems and government, physical 

 and mental characteristics, archeology, and other subjects. 



This work of studying and recording the Indian tribes is not only 

 of national importance, but urgent. It can never be repeated. It 

 will constitute the only systematic record of the red race that can 

 ever be made. The native race, one of the four races of men, is dis- 

 appearing, and the processes of obliteration are irresistible and swift. 

 A language or culture of any race, once destroyed, can never be re- 

 covered. The work is worthy of a great nation, and is one that can be 

 carried on systematically only by the Government. The Government 

 has two great obligations which the Bureau is rapidly fulfilling: 

 (1) To know the Indian for practical purposes of government and in 

 the interests of humanity; (2) to preserve to the world an adequate 

 record of the race which is so rapidly disappearing. 



With the object of assisting the departments of the Government 

 having custody of the public domain in the preservation of antiqui- 

 ties, the work of compiling a descriptive catalogue of antiquities has 

 been continued, and several bulletins relating to this work have been 

 published. 



Uniform rules and regulations have been adopted by the three de- 

 partments in control of the public domain in carrying out the recently 

 enacted law for the preservation of antiquities. Under this law three 

 important archeological sites were declared national monuments, as 

 follows : Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, including several important 

 ruined pueblos; El Moro, New Mexico, commonly known as Inscrip- 

 tion Rock, and Montezuma Castle, in Arizona, an important cliff ruin. 



INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGES. 



The work of the International Exchange Service continues to 

 increase from year to year, until the number of packages annually 

 passing through the hands of the service now amounts to nearly 

 200,000, and the weight to over 200 tons. During the past year 

 nearly 2,000 packing boxes were required in transmitting exchanges 

 to other countries. These figures serve to convey some idea of the 

 magnitude of the operations of the service and make apparent the 

 need of increased appropriations from time to time in order to keep 

 the work up to the high standard of efficiency which has been 

 attained. A larger appropriation was therefore requested for carry- 

 ing on the service during the coming year, and it is gratifying to state 

 that Congress granted $32,200, an increase of $3,400 over the sum 



