Z BUREAU OF AMERICAlsr ETHNOLOGY 



The greater part of the year was devoted by Dr. John K. Swanton, 

 ethnologist, to work connected with the researches of the United 

 States De Soto Expedition Commission. During most of October and 

 the first half of November 1938, he w^as in the field in the interest of that 

 Commission. Visits were made by automobile to points in North and 

 South Carolina and southern Georgia, and a great deal of time was 

 spent in researches in Florida, where he was assisted materially by 

 Dr. Herman Gunter, the State geologist, and J. Clarence Simpson. 

 On leaving Florida, Dr. Swanton visited Dr. Walter B. Jones, mem- 

 ber of the Commission from Alabama, at Tuscaloosa, and then went 

 to Aberdeen, Miss., where he was met by Col. John R. Fordyce, the 

 Commissioner from Arkansas. In company with Colonel Fordyce 

 and Dr. W. A. Evans, of Aberdeen, he visited several points in north- 

 ern Mississippi. Colonel Fordyce then drove him to Helena, Ark., 

 where 2 days were spent in the examination of sites along Crowley's 

 Ridge and on White River. Afterward excursions were made to the 

 Menard Mounds near Little Rock and points along the Little Mis- 

 souri River. On October 26 Dr. Swanton and Colonel Fordyce joined 

 Miss Caroline Dormon, the Louisiana member of the Commission, 

 and her sister, at Jonesville, La., and spent 2 days on the Ouachita 

 and Tensas Rivers in launches kindly furnished by the Mississippi 

 River Commission and accompanied by some of the Commission's 

 officials. Later Dr. Swanton visited Baton Rouge to confer with 

 members of the geological staff of the Louisiana State University, 

 and with James A. Ford, the archeologist engaged in research work 

 in that State, returning from there to Little Rock and thence to 

 Washington. 



The remainder of the calendar year 1938 was devoted to the com- 

 pletion of the report of the Commission, and during the first months 

 of 1939 Dr. Swanton was engaged in reading proof for this report, 

 which appeared in May as House Document No. 71 of the Seventy- 

 sixth Congress. It covers 400 pages and includes 11 maps. 



On May 30, by special invitation, Dr. Swanton attended the unveil- 

 ing of a marker at Shaw's Point, near Bradenton, Fla., commemora- 

 tive of the landing of De Soto, and during this trip he spoke to 

 audiences at Rollins College, Winter Park, on the Indians of Florida 

 and the work of the De Soto Commission, and before the Kiwanis 

 Club at Bradenton and the Jacksonville Historical Society at Jack- 

 sonville on the latter subject. 



On December 29, 1938, Dr. Swanton delivered the retiring address 

 as president of section H of the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science. 



The start of the fiscal year found Dr. John P. Harrington, ethnolo- 

 gist, engaged in a study of the northern provenience of the Navaho. 

 This tribe, the largest single-dialect Indian population in the United 



