34 Report of the President 



nection. Besides this Review, Doctor Elliot was the author 

 of many other volumes and papers. On the occasion of his 

 eightieth birthday, on March 7, 1915, a formal word of greet- 

 ing and appreciation was extended by the Trustees and mem- 

 bers of the staff of the American Museum. In recognition of 

 his services he was elected a Trustee of the Museum at a 

 meeting of the Board held November 8, 1915, in the Class of 

 1917. 



The death of Dr. Charles F. Holder occurred in Pasadena, 

 California, on October 11, and this country has thus lost one 

 of its older marine naturalists. In 1871 he was appointed 

 Assistant Curator in the American Museum, to assist his 

 father, who had been associated with the Museum since its 

 inception. Doctor Holder resigned his position in the 

 Museum in 1875 and soon afterward accepted the chair of 

 zoology at Throop College, Pasadena. At the time of his 

 death he was Honorary Curator of its museum. Doctor 

 Holder was the author of many books and a member of many 

 distinguished scientific societies. 



Professor Frederic Ward Putnam, the founder of anthropo- 

 logical research in the American Museum, died in Cambridge, 

 Massachusetts, on August 14, 1915. Professor Putnam was 

 a genius in Museum development and is by far the most con- 

 spicuous figure in the history of American museums. Anthro- 

 pology as we use the term had scarcely come into existence 

 when he took it up. He was the father of municipal anthro- 

 pological research institutions in America. The Peabody 

 Museum in Cambridge as it stands to-day is due to his leader- 

 ship; his coming to the American Museum in the year 1894 

 resulted in the development of anthropology as a department 

 of research and the beginning of a policy of extensive system- 

 atic field investigation. It was Professor Putnam who 

 encouraged the late Marshall Field to establish in Chicago the 

 great museum which now bears his name, and it was Professor 

 Putnam who guided its department of anthropology through 

 its formative period. Later he organized a department of 

 anthropology and a museum at the University of California, 

 where he was director for several years. When Professor 

 Putnam was invited to the American Museum by President 



