Report of the President. 1 3 



In October, 1902, the International Congress of American- 

 ists held its thirteenth annual session at the Museum. This 

 is the first time that the Congress has met in this country. 



The subjects discussed at the meetings of the International 

 Congress of Americanists related to: I. The Native Races 

 of America: their Origin, Distribution, History, Physical 

 Characteristics, Languages, Inventions, Customs and Re- 

 ligions; II. The History of the Early Contact between 

 America and the Old World. 



To make the preliminary arrangements for the Congress 

 and the discussions pertaining to the foregoing topics, a 

 special committee was appointed, consisting of the heads 

 of the departments of Anthropology, and your President 

 invited the American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science through its section of Anthropology to advise and 

 cooperate with that committee in selecting a general commis- 

 sion of organization, representative of the leading institutions in 

 the United States at which work in Anthropology is being done. 



Department of Geology and Invertebrate Palaeon- 

 tology. — The Curator's time has been spent in the regular 

 routine work of the Department; indeed, we feel more and 

 more the responsibility connected with the general supervision 

 of the large collections intrusted to our care. 



The work of revising the classification strips has been com- 

 pleted, and the labeling and identification of the Tertiary and 

 later collections undertaken. Certain other, unlabeled, col- 

 lections and a collection of casts of important fossils, donated 

 by the Curator, have been installed. 



Among the Tertiary collections, those of Miocene fossils 

 from Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, and vicinity, are the most 

 important. During the summer, these collections were all 

 worked over, put in order and prepared for exhibition. The 

 collections are extremely interesting and valuable, quite as 

 much because of their peculiar faunal properties as for their 

 geographical location. 



The total number of labels added to the collection during 

 the year was 1,969. 



