Abstract
IN his report, just issued, on the Peabody Museum of American Archæology and Ethnology, Prof. Putnam is able to record the results of a very exceptional amount of useful work. This is due to the fact that while the officers of the Museum have discharged their usual duties many special archæological and ethnological researches have also been carried on with a view to the collection of material for the Chicago Exhibition. Prof. Putnam says:— Never before his such an extensive field of anthropological research been covered in two years' time, and it is desirable to place on record what has been accomplished. In the north, Lieutenant Peary's expedition to Greenland has brought back valuable collection from the little known tribe of Eskimo at Whale Sound, including their summer houses of skins, their boats, sledges, weapons, implements, utensils, ornaments; full sets of garments and carvings in ivory, as well as several hundred photographs of individuals of the tribe and of scenes illustrating their daily life; also several crania, and a complete census of the tribe with a full set of anthropotuetrical measurements and observations. In Labrador, the Skiles expedition (upon which I obtained positions for two Harvard students, one as a naturalist and the otheras astronomer) has brought back 57 ofthe Labrador Eskimo,—men, women, and children with all their belongings,—making an Eskimo village now on the Fair grounds in Chicago, where it will remain until the Fair is over. On the Pacific side Dr. Sheldon Jackson has made ethnological collections in Alaska, and also among the coast tribes of Siberia. Mr. Cherry has collected from the tribes of Yucon valley; and by seven other assistants a systematic collection has been made on the north-west coast, between the Columbia River and Alaska, particularly from northern Vancouver and the Queen Charlotte Islands. On the Saskatchawan Mr. Cowie has made a complete collection to illustrate the life and customs of the tribes of the valley.
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Archælogical Work in America. Nature 47, 474–476 (1893). https://doi.org/10.1038/047474b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/047474b0