Mr. J. K. HILLERS has continued the collection of photographs of prominent Indians in both full-face and profile, by which method all the facial characteristics are exhibited to the best advantage. In nearly every instance a record has been preserved of the sitter’s status in the tribe, his age, biographic notes of interest, and in cases of mixed bloods, the degree of intermixture of blood. The total number of photographs obtained during the year is 27, distributed among the following tribes, viz: Sac and Fox, 5; Dakota, 6; Omaha, 6, and mixed bloods (Creeks), 10.
Mr. FRANZ BOAS was employed from February to April in preparing for convenient use a series of vocabularies of the several Salish divisions, previously collected by him in British Columbia.
Mr. LUCIEN M. TURNER was for two years stationed at the Hudson Bay Company’s post, Fort Chimo, near the northern end of the peninsula of Labrador, as a civilian observer in the employ of the Signal Service, U. S. Army. He was appointed to that position at the request of the late Prof. Baird, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, in order that his skill might be made available in a complete investigation of the ethnology and natural history of the region. Mr. Turner left Washington in June, 1882, and returned in the autumn of 1884. During the last year he was engaged in the preparation of a report which will appear in one of the forthcoming annual reports of the Bureau.
The officers of the Bureau of Ethnology and all persons interested in researches concerning the North American Indians were this year called to lament the death of Mr. James Stevenson, who had made regular and valuable contributions to the publications and collections of the Bureau.
Mr. Stevenson was born in Maysville, Kentucky, on the 24th of December, 1840. When but a boy of 16 he became associated with Prof. F. V. Hayden, and accompanied him upon expeditions into the regions of the upper Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. Although the main objects of these expeditions were geological, his tastes led him chiefly to the observation of the customs and dialects of the Indians, and the facilities for such study afforded him by the winters spent among the Blackfoot and Dakota Indians excited and confirmed the anthropologic zeal which absorbed the greater part of his life.