FOR THE benefit of members of the American Anthropological Association who desire to consult the Constitution, it may be said that the latter will be found in Volume 7, No. 4, October-December, 1905, of the American Anthropologist.

DR EDWARD ANTHONY SPITZKA, fellow and demonstrator of anatomy in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, has been elected professor of general anatomy in Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia.

DR FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS, professor of sociology in Columbia University, has been appointed professor of the history of civilization, filling the chair founded recently by Mrs Maria H. Williamson with a fund of $150,000.

FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. By resolution of the board of trustees of the Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, dated November 8th last, the name of the museum was changed to Field Museum of Natural History.

DR J. W. LOWBER, F.R.G.S., member of the Royal Societies Club of Austin, Texas, and of the American Anthropological Association, has been elected to membership in the Royal Asiatic Society of London.

YALE UNIVERSITY has conferred the degree of doctor of science on Professor Henry H. Donaldson, head of the department of neurology of the Wistar Institute of Anatomy, of the University of Pennsylvania.

WE REGRET to record the death, on May 16th, of Dr Hermann Obst, Director of the Museum für Völkerkunde in Leipzig. Professor A. Bergt has received an appointment as acting director of the Museum.

MR ROBERT Y. CUMMINGS has given $20,000 to the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, to defray the expenses of an ethnological study of the native tribes of the Philippine islands.

DR CHARLES PEABODY has been appointed instructor in European archeology in the Department of Anthropology of Harvard University for one year from September 1st next.

MR CLARENCE B. MOORE, of Philadelphia, has been elected a corresponding member of the Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte.

DR J. WALTER FEWKES, of the Bureau of American Ethnology, has been elected a corresponding member of the Boston Society of Natural History.

A REVIEW OF THE ACTIVITIES OF INSTITUTIONS AND INDIVIDUALS FROM 1902 TO 1906

PRESENTED TO THE FIFTEENTH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF AMERICANISTS, QUEBEC, 1906

Although the International Congress of Americanists has for its object the consideration of American topics, only two meetings of the body have been held in the New World. It was not until the fall of 1902 that the United States was honored with the presence of the Congress, which then convened in New York City in its Thirteenth session. On this occasion delegates and other members of the Congress had the opportunity of rounding out their knowledge of the recent progress in anthropologic research in its various branches on the part of students in the western world, and by means of excursions after the close of the session they were enabled to have a glimpse of some of the collections outside of New York that had been gathered through state and private enterprise, as well as to gain further knowledge of the methods employed in this country in anthropologic investigation.

It is not unsafe to say that in no similar period of our history has so great an advance been made in anthropologic work on the North American continent as during that which has elapsed since the Thirteenth session of the International Congress of Americanists in 1902. The national, state, and municipal governments and museums, the universities and colleges, and other scientific and educational institutions, as well as individuals, have been industriously engaged in various fields of activity-in research, collecting, in

structing, and publishing; new institutions have been organized and educational establishments that hitherto have had only a passing interest in anthropology have come to regard it as a necessary feature of their curricula; and individuals have generously devoted their time and means to the advancement of those interests that the International Congress of Americanists represents.

THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

It has been said that perhaps the most important single event of the present century in the history of the development of American anthropology was the formation of the American Anthropological Association. While this took place (at Pittsburg) June 30, 1902, three months before the International Congress of Americanists. convened in New York, the first regular meeting of the Association was not held until December of the same year. The entire history of the new Association, therefore, except that of its birth, falls within the period that has elapsed since the New York session of the Congress.'

While the membership is miscellaneous in character it includes practically all the anthropologists of the country. At the beginning of the year 1903 the membership numbered 175; it has almost doubled in the last three years, being now 271. Two presidents have served the Association since its foundation, Dr W J McGee and Professor F. W. Putnam; two secretaries, Dr George A. Dorsey and Dr George Grant MacCurdy; two treasurers, Dr Roland B. Dixon and Mr B. Talbot B. Hyde; and one editor, Mr F. W. Hodge.

One of the chief purposes of the new Association is the publication of a high class journal. This purpose is being realized in the American Anthropologist, for which a grand prize was conferred on the Association in 1904 by the International Jury of Awards of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St Louis. In addition to the Anthropologist, a series of Memoirs is to be published, part 1 of volume I having already appeared, while part II is in press.

I See The American Anthropological Association, by George A. Dorsey, American Anthropologist, v, Jan.-Mar., 1903; also The Foundation of a National Anthropological Society, by Franz Boas, Science, XV, p. 804.

Another object of the Association is "to serve as a bond of union among American anthropologists and American anthropological organizations." In pursuance of this object the membership has been increased and both annual and special meetings have been held. Three of the annual meetings were in conjunction with those of Section H of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at Washington, St Louis, and Philadelphia, respectively; while the fourth was held at Ithaca, N. Y.,' in affiliation with the Archæological Institute of America and the American Philological Association. The special meeting held in San Francisco, August 29 to September 2, 1905, was the most notable of all, proving as it did the truly national character of the organization in that a successful meeting of anthropologists could be held independently of other societies and on the Pacific, as well as on the Atlantic, coast. The next annual meeting of the Association will be held in New York City during Convocation Week, in affiliation with Section H of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Ever since its foundation the American Anthropological Association has kept in touch with the International Congress of Americanists, one of its first acts being the appointment of a delegate (Mr J. D. McGuire) to the New York Congress of 1902. It sent delegates also to the Stuttgart Congress of 1904, and will be largely represented at the Quebec Congress. A sub-committee on program for the Quebec Congress was recently named by President F. W. Putnam; it consists of the following members: George Grant MacCurdy (chairman), F. W. Hodge, Marshall H. Saville, George B. Gordon, George A. Dorsey, W J McGee, A. L. Kroeber, and Roland B. Dixon.

Much is being accomplished through standing committees, notably those on American Archeological Nomenclature, Nomenclature of Indian Linguistic Families North of Mexico, Book Reviews, and The Preservation of American Antiquities. The last named committee, acting jointly with a like committee from the Archæological

1 American Anthropologist, VIII, p. 208, Jan.-Mar., 1906.

2 American Anthropologist, VII, p. 732, Oct.-Dec., 1905 (for amended Constitution, see p. 745).

Institute of America, has been most instrumental in framing and securing the passage of the bill for the preservation of American antiquities.

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES

It is encouraging to note on the part of the National Government a better appreciation than ever before of the needs of anthropology. Among other evidences of this spirit is the recent enactment by Congress of the law, above alluded to, for the preservation of antiquities on the public domain by prohibiting the excavation thereof or the gathering of collections therefrom except for the benefit of educational and scientific institutions.' A step in a similar direction is the provision made by Congress at its last session for the establishment of the Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, which contains some of the most important cliff-dwellings in the United States. For several years the General Government has taken measures for the care of the celebrated ruin of Casa Grande in Arizona, and recently Congress has provided for its further protection as well as for its excavation.

For many years the Office of Indian Affairs maintained the policy of trying to eliminate everything aboriginal from the American Indian by substituting therefor something that originated with the white man, whether or not it was adapted to the Indian's needs. But the present Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Honorable Francis E. Leupp, who has long been an earnest student of the Indian problem, finds good in the aborigines that his predecessors seem to have overlooked, and is securing the means for encouraging some of their native industries. Another step- one which every lover of the esthetic will encourage — is the beginning that the Commissioner has made toward recording the music of the Indians, much of which otherwise in a few years would have been lost forever.

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

But the center of anthropological research under the auspices of the General Government is the Smithsonian Institution, which directs the investigations of the Bureau of American Ethnology and the collection and study of material by the National Museum. In view of

1 For the text of the law, see American Anthropologist, VIII, p. 433, Apr.-June, 1906.