Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/307

special interest in this museum would take us far beyond our limits. Among the collections are magnificent series from the mounds of Ohio and the stone graves of Tennessee; complete altars of baked clay from Ohio "altar mounds"; Kentucky cavern finds; interesting series from the caverns of southern California, comprising perishable objects seldom preserved, such as a feather head-dress, basketry, wooden objects, and a wonderful lot of bone whistles found in a single basket; Flint's interesting gatherings from Nicaragua; collections from the old cities of Yucatan; the Agassiz collection from ancient Peruvian graves; the rich yield from the Madisonville cemetery: Wyman's collection from the fresh-water shell-heaps of the St. John's River, Fla.; and the famous Abbott collection from New Jersey, the basis of Dr. Abbott's paper, The Stone Age in New Jersey. Two other series deserve especial mention—the one of specimens from Honduras, some of the pottery in which is exceedingly interesting as showing a field for exploration scarcely known to our archæologists. Prof. Putnam has made arrangements with the Government of Honduras whereby the museum has the exclusive right of archæological exploration in that country for a term of ten years. Dr. D. G. Brinton. Mr. Saville, the museum assistant, is now in that field. Very important is the great collection of American "palæoliths." Here are Dr. Abbott's argillite implements from the Trenton gravels, and the skulls from the same locality; Miss Babbitt's quartzite flakes and rude implements from the Minnesota drift deposits; and the Ohio, Indiana, and Delaware specimens from post-glacial or glacial deposits. Nowhere else is there any such an exhibit of these rude, early types, which have caused so much bitter discussion. We have spoken only of American collections, but there are also in this museum series illustrative of European archæology, fine specimens from the South Seas, and a Semitic museum, which deserve more than a passing reference. The museum has published annual reports for twenty-four years; some of them have