ANTHROPOLOGY AT WASHINGTON. 793 



be published in the form of monographs, it is the custom to issue, 

 as widely as occasion requires, circulars intended to call attention 

 to special subjects being investigated, and to invite correspondence 

 and to elicit information from specialists and investigators in all 

 parts of the world. Occasionally the importance of the subject 

 has warranted the issuance of such documents in the form de- 

 signed for the finished work, with the view of setting forth the 

 facts gathered and the progress made in the study. The latter 

 publications, however, are looked upon only in the nature of 

 proof-sheets, being intended for the temporary use of collabora- 

 tors, and are to be recalled and destroyed when the final reports 

 are published. 



The Army Medical Museum. — The anthropological investi- 

 gations which are fostered by this institution are on the biological 

 side. The large collections of skeletons, and especially of crania, 

 make it possible to secure valuable data in anthropometry. Drs. 

 Billings and Matthews have been alive to the richness of the ma- 

 terial at their disposal, and their studies in skull measurements 

 and composite photography of crania will be among the most 

 valuable contributions of the United States Government to an- 

 thropology. 



It is not surprising that with the large number of anthropolo- 

 gists, together with such other students as the public and private 

 institutions at Washington contain, a prosperous Anthropological 

 Society should be in operation. This society, organized in 1879, 

 now has an active membership of sixteen hundred. Of the two 

 hundred and more papers that have been presented, more than 

 half were by persons who were in the institutions already de- 

 scribed. Four volumes of " Transactions " have been published, 

 and the society is now issuing a quarterly of ninety-six pages. 



The following are the titles of the principal papers in the pub- 

 lications of the Bureau of Ethnology : 



ANNUAL REPORTS. 



Vol. I, Washington, 1881 : 



1. "On the Evolution of Language," by J. W. Powell. 



2. "Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians," by J. W. 

 Powell. 



3. " Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North Ameri- 

 can Indians," by Dr. H. 0. Yarrow. 



4. "Studies in Central American Picture-Writing," by E. S. Holden. 



5. "Cessions of Land by Indian Tribes to the United States," by C. C. Royce. 



6. " Sign-Language among North American Indians compared with that among 

 other Peoples and Deaf -Mutes," by Garrick Mallery. 



Vol. II, 1883 : 



1. "Zufii Fetiches," by F. H. Cushing. 



2. "Myths of the Iroquois," by E. A. Smith. 



