430 
Scientific Notes . [July? 
two years of his life to making the Smithsonian Institution what its founder 
intended it to be, an efficient instrument for the “ increase and diffusion of 
knowledge among men.” 
At a Special Meeting of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion, held on May 17, 1878, Professor Spencer Fullerton Baird, for many 
years the assistant secretary of the Institution, was duly elected as the Sec- 
retary of the Smithsonian Institution, to succeed the late Professor Joseph 
Henry. 
We are indebted to Prof. F. V. Hayden for an account of the field-work of 
the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, 
under his direction, for the season of 1877. From it we learn that in 1874 the 
photographic division of the United States Geological Survey was instructed, 
in connection with its regular work, to visit and report upon ruins of an ex- 
tensive and interesting character, which were known to exist throughout New 
Mexico and Arizona, and in pursuance of this objeCt made a hasty tour of the 
region about the Mesa Virde and the Sierra el Late, in South-western 
Colorado, the results of which trip, as expressed by Bancroft, in the “ Native 
Racesof the Pacific Coast,” “ although made known to the world only through 
a three or four days’ exploration by a party of three men, are of the greatest 
importance.” The following year the same region was visited by Mr. W. H. 
Holmes, one of the geologists of the Survey, and a careful investigation made 
of all the ruins. Mr. Jackson, who had made the report the previous year, also 
revisited this locality, but extended his explorations down the San Juan to 
the mouth of the De Chelly, and thence to the Moqui villages in North- 
eastern Arizona. Returning, the country between the Sierra Abajo and La 
Sal and La Plata was transversed, and an immense number of very interesting 
ruins were first brought to the attention of the outside world by the report 
which was published the following winter by Messrs. Holmes and Jackson, in 
the survey, vol. ii., No. 1. The occasion of the Centennial Exhibition at 
Philadelphia led to the idea of preparing models of these ruins for the clearer 
illustration of their peculiarities, four of which were completed in season for 
the opening of the Exhibition. A study of the models give a very excellent 
idea of the ruined dwellings themselves. The first of these models, executed 
by Mr. Holmes, with whom the idea originated, represents the cliff house of 
the Mancos Canon, the exterior dimensions of which are 28 inches in breadth 
by 46 inches in height, and on a scale of 1*24, or 2 feet to the inch. This is 
a two-story building, constructed of stone, occupying a narrow ledge in the 
vertical face of the bluff 700 feet above the valley, and 200 feet from the top. 
It is 24 feet in length and 14 feet in depth, and divided into four rooms on the 
ground-floor. The beams supporting the second floor are all destroyed. The 
doorways, serving also as windows, were quite small, only one small aperture 
in the outer wall facing the valley. The exposed walls were lightly plastered 
over with clay, and so closely resembled the general surface of the bluff that it 
becomes exceedingly difficult to distinguish them at a little distance from their 
surroundings. The second model of this series was constructed by Mr. Jack- 
son, and represents the large “ cave town,” in the valley of Rio de Chelly, 
near its junction with the San Juan. This town is located upon a narrow 
bench, occurring about 80 feet above the base of a perpendicular bluff some 
300 feet in height. It is 545 feet in length, about 40 feet at its greatest depth, 
and shows about 75 apartments on its ground-plan. The left-hand third of 
the town, as we face it, is overhung some distance by the bluff, protecting the 
buildings beneath much more perfectly than the others. This is the portion 
represented by the model. A three-story tower forms the central feature ; 
upon either side are rows of lesser buildings, built one above another upon the 
sloping floor of rock. Nearly all these buildings are in a fair state of preser- 
vation. This model is 37 by 47 inches, outside measurements, and the scale 
i'j2, or 6 feet to the inch. A “ restoration ” of the above forms the third in 
the series, of the same size and scale, and is intended, as its name applies, to 
represent as nearly as possible the original condition of the ruin. In this the 
approaches were made by ladders and steps hewn in the rock, and the 
roofs of one tier of rooms served as a terrace for those back of them, showing 
