PACIFIC EXPLORATION: H. A. PILSBRY 
429 
mortuary chamber in which ancient chiefs of the island are said to have 
been buried. The work thus far done by archaeologists on these great 
monuments is comparatively superficial. Further investigations prom- 
ise much additional material. 
The islands of the Pacific present most instructive problems in phys- 
ical anthropology. There is every evidence that renewed study in 
this line would reveal much new material. 
The strongest appeal that the anthropologist can make for additional 
field work on the prehistoric inhabitants of the Pacific and their culture 
is their bearing on the unity or plurality of origin of man. Culturally 
the aborigines of America and those of the Pacific islands were in the 
Stone age when discovered. We naturally look to the Pacific for the 
cultural kin of the American race. It is desirable that extended ob- 
servations be made on the Polynesians to supplement what is known 
of the Stone age of the continents, especially America. 
I would naturally lay great stress on a systematic survey of the 
aboriginal monuments in the Pacific islands to discover their history. 
The first step would be to make an archaeological reconnaissance to 
determine the distribution and character of antiquities. Having 
determined in this way which one of the many sites of human occupation 
shows superficial evidences of the greatest age, excavation should be 
made upon it to ascertain its age, history and relation of former inhabit- 
ants, as shown by skeletal material, remains of architecture, minor 
artifacts and other archaeological material. 
MID-PACIFIC LAND SNAIL FAUNAS 
By H. A. Pilsbry 
ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA 
Read before the National Academy, April 17. 1916. Received, June 7, 1916 
It may seem presumptuous to infer from the distribution of little 
land snails on scattered Pacific islands, that large Pacific land areas 
have disappeared in Tertiary time; but if we accept the general princi- 
ple that similar organisms have evolved from a common ancestry, this 
bold inference seems justified. Briefly, the reasons are as follows: 
The land snails of the Pacific islands, as far as now known, may be 
divided into two groups: those living on low islands and on the shore 
zone of high islands, and those inhabiting the forests of high islands. 
Many of the first group have a wide distribution suggestive of dispersal 
by human or other adventitious agency and are therefore not significant 
in the present problem. 
