The correspondence and other clerical work of the office has been conducted by Miss May S. Clark, clerk to the chief, assisted by Anthony W. Wilding, clerk. Miss Mae W. Tucker, stenographer, was engaged in copying manuscript material for Doctor Swanton and in assisting Mr. Hewitt in his work as custodian of manuscripts and phonograph records. The manuscript Dictionary of * * * Indian Languages of North, Central, and South America and the West Indies, compiled by W. R. Gerard, which was in danger of becoming illegible due to the frayed condition of the paper on which it was written and the faded writing, has been copied by Miss Tucker. Work was begun on the catalogue of the photographic negatives belonging to the bureau. To date approximately 7,000 negatives have been listed. During the course of the year information was furnished by members of the staff in reply to numerous inquiries concerning the North American Indians, both past and present, and the Mexican peoples of the prehistoric and early historic periods to the south. Various specimens sent to the bureau were identified and data on them furnished for their owners. _Personnel._--Winslow M. Walker was appointed as associate anthropologist on the staff of the bureau on March 6, 1931. Miss May S. Clark, clerk, retired June 30, 1931. Respectfully submitted. M. W. STIRLING, _Chief_. Dr. C. G. ABBOT, _Secretary, Smithsonian Institution._ ACCOMPANYING PAPER GENERAL INDEX ANNUAL REPORTS OF THE BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY VOLS. 1 TO 48 (1879 TO 1931) [WASHINGTON, D. C., 1881-1933] COMPILED BY BIREN BONNERJEA CONTENTS Page Preface 29 Subject index 33 List of annual reports of the Bureau of American Ethnology 1185 Index to authors and titles 1205 Obituary 1221 PREFACE To the cultural anthropologist, as also to the archeologist, the United States of America offer an unusually rich field in being a region where civilized and primitive races exist side by side, where languages belonging to totally different linguistic stocks are still spoken by isolated tribes differing from each other in their cultural and physical aspects, and where traces of lost civilizations indicating the antiquity of man are being unearthed every day. The Bureau of American Ethnology, since its beginning in 1879, has attempted to preserve these ancient records for posterity; and its annual reports are a veritable storehouse of information on languages and customs of tribes, many of whom have already disappeared and others are fast disappearing. In fact, it would be safe to assert that there is no one series of books containing so much material about the North American aborigines as these annual reports.