In this year, also, he was appointed an assistant on the Geological Survey of Kentucky, and passed several months in cave explorations. It was at this time that Salt and Saunders Caves were thoroughly explored and so much of archæological importance was discovered. A report of these "finds" was published in the "Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History." Important zoölogical results were also obtained from the same and other caves, and accounts thereof published in various journals of learned societies, and subsequently issued as a separate volume, under the joint authorship of F. W. Putnam and A. S. Packard, Jr.
In September, 1874, on the death of Professor Jeffries Wyman, Putnam, at the request of Professor Asa Gray, took temporary charge of the collections of the Peabody Museum of American Archæology and Ethnology, in connection with Harvard University. At the annual meeting of the board of trustees, in January, 1875, Putnam was appointed Curator of the Museum. That such action should have been taken was most natural, as Professor Gray, in his single brief report as curator pro tem., remarks: "As respects the care of the museum during the short period in which I have endeavored to act as temporary curator, while I have given to it such attention as I could, it was soon evident that the lack of time and of the requisite technical knowledge would prevent me from personally carrying on the work which had to be done. I therefore availed myself of the permission granted at a former meeting of the board, and engaged the valuable assistance of Mr. F. W. Putnam, of Salem, who is better acquainted than any one else with the museum, and with Dr. Wyman's method and arrangements, having been much associated with him both in exploration and publication." The above clearly shows that, of many who would have gladly undertaken the care of the museum, no one was so eminently fitted for the position.
In 1876 Putnam was also appointed an assistant in the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy, in charge of the collection of fishes, which duty was undertaken and continued until 1878, when domestic affliction necessitated his resignation.
In 1876 the Engineer Department of the United States Army appointed Putnam to take charge of and report upon the archæological collections made by the attachés of the Geological Survey, west of the 100th meridian, Lieutenant George M. Wheeler in charge. The report was finished in 1879, and constitutes Volume VII of the quarto publications of that survey. In the preparation of this volume, Putnam was assisted by several specialists; but his own hand is evident in the general editorial supervision of all parts, and the exhaustive article, covering fifty-five pages, on perforated stones, by Putnam exclusively, is one of the most complete and valuable contributions to prehistoric archæology by an American author.
As indicative of the value of his scientific labors, we find that, be-
