104 Report of the President 



EXISTING AND EXTINCT RACES OF MEN* 

 Clark Wissler, Curator 



The personnel of the Department was greatly weakened 

 during the year by the absence of several members of our staff. 



Associate Curator Herbert J. Spinden spent the 

 inSt^F entire year at Harvard University and is not to 



return. Associate Curator Robert H. Lowie re- 

 signed to accept a position in the University of California. 

 Finally, the serious illness of Assistant Curator Louis R. Sul- 

 livan, necessitating a long, indefinite absence from the City, 

 constitutes another irreparable loss. No provision having been 

 made to fill these vacancies, this threatened reduction in our 

 scientific staff is most lamentable. It is, in fact, the culmination 

 of a drift that began some years ago when we had a staff of 

 eleven, whereas we now have but five on the active list. When 

 we consider the abilities of the men who have gone, it is clear 

 that the efficiency of the Department has declined fully fifty 

 per cent., and that, in consequence, the future status of anthro- 

 pology in this Museum is jeopardized. 



Further, the exhibition work of the Department is hampered 

 by these reductions, the mere routine in the case of incoming 



collections and other necessary business that falls 



to this Department, leaving little time for ad- 

 vances in exhibition. 



Mr. Will S. Taylor has practically completed the south wall 

 mural for the Jesup North Pacific Hall and has ready for sub- 

 mission the study for the final north wall canvas. Mr. Howard 

 McCormick has completed the background for the great Navajo 

 Group lin the Southwest Hall, and Mr. Mahonri M. Young, the 

 sculptor, is at work upon the figures for the same. In the hall 

 devoted to the Indian life of the Eastern Woodlands, a birchbark 

 tipi of the Micmac type has been erected and figures have been 

 made by Mr. Horter to install as a family group with interior 

 settings. The closing of the west wing of the fourth floor has 

 taken from exhibition the South Sea and Philippine collections, 



* Under the Department of Anthropology (see also pages 214 to 218). 



