88 Report of the President 



Mr. B. T. B. Hyde spent part of the summer at Aztec assist- 

 ing Mr. Earl H. Morris in the excavation of that ruin, and in 

 addition gathered supplementary data for future publications 

 dealing with early explorations among the cliff-dwellings of 

 Utah and in the Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. This work is 

 now so far advanced that its early completion may be antici- 

 pated. 



Dr. Herbert J. Spinden conducted extensive archaeological 

 and ethnological explorations in Central America and Colombia, 

 making five collections from as many special areas. The 

 ethnological operations were mostly in Guatemala and Nica- 

 ragua, while the archaeological explorations were in the main 

 confined to western Salvador, Honduras, the Miskito Coast, 

 and the interior of Colombia. Collections were made, the most 

 important being a fine series of pottery vessels from Salvador 

 representing the Maya period. Among the ethnological col- 

 lections mention may be made of a series of textiles from the 

 Indians of Guatemala showing a native brown cotton and a 

 purple dye extracted from the purpura shellfish, as well as 

 other textiles illustrating designing by tie-dyeing, brocading, 

 embroidery, etc. These will greatly enrich the Museum's ex- 

 tensive collections in the field of aboriginal textile art. Another 

 important accomplishment was the mapping of three hundred 

 miles of the Miskito Coast to show the tribal distributions and 

 locations of present Indian villages. 



The somatic collections of the department were completely 

 overhauled and reorganized during the year by Assistant Cura- 

 tor L. R. Sullivan ; the details of the work were in 



£, tu .? y . charge of Mr. B. E. Hoover. To economize 



Collections to . 



space, the crania have been separated from the 



long bones and placed in individual containers, systematically 



shelved and grouped. A parallel arrangement of the skeletons 



proper will permit ready reassembling if occasion requires. 



The completion of four concrete storage rooms gave relief to 



the congested condition among the ethnological collections in 



charge of Mr. W. A. Sabine. Further, an opportunity was thus 



afforded to arrange more systematically our Philippine and 



Asiatic reference collections, which gives added efficiency to 



