Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/317

 Prof. Mason particularly wishes to emphasize is the way in which primitive man works. Thus he is not content with securing the various fire-making machines, but he must have Mr. Hough demonstrate their use by actually making fire with them. So he has encouraged Mr. Maguire to illustrate how stone tools were made by making them. One is astounded by the vast collections in this museum—there is a bewildering wealth of material. All that is received is divided into three series—the smallest is displayed in cases; the second, much larger and wonderfully rich, is placed in drawers for students to use; the third is stored away for purposes of exchange. The museum publishes its own Transactions, in which many valuable monographs appear.

The Curator of Prehistoric Anthropology of the Smithsonian Institution is the Hon. Thomas Wilson, who at one time represented our Government in Europe. While there he had unusual opportunities for field-work in the famous localities, for study of museums, and for acquaintance with the workers. He has charge of a vast mass of material. Here are surface-found specimens from every State in the Union; the beautiful objects from the mounds which supplied the illustrations for Holmes's Art in Shell; the famous copper plates from the Etowah mounds; the Perkins collection of copper implements from Wisconsin; the Latimer collection of stone implements from Porto Rico; good series from Mexico, Yucatan, and Central America. Here, too, are the results of Dr. Cyrus Thomas's mound explorations and Warren K. Moorehead's deposit. A large space is devoted to Mr. Mindeleff's wonderfully natural and interesting miniature reproductions of the pueblos of New Mexico. There is, in fact, such a wealth of material that one is confused by its very abundance. Mr. Wilson has done a very wise and instructive thing in arranging "synoptical cases." These are table-cases, placed in two groups, one on each side of the entrance-door. In one is given, by a few carefully selected, carefully labeled, and illustratedly explained specimens, a synopsis of the prehistoric