S&SWM PR papers L1238

Smithsonian Institute | United States National Museum | Washington, April 10 1895

Dear Sir.

I have been lately reading with great care and interest your paper in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute on navigation. Of course you have done much more since that was printed and I have been wondering whether you had published in other works the continuation of that study. Have you seen Schrenke, Reisen und Forschungen in Arme-Lund, St Petersburg? It continues the bark canoe to the Giliak area opening into Okholsk sea. And, what is more curious, the same form sharpened under the water exists today on the upper Colombia. [Drawing] We are looking over all our ethnic types here and shall be glad to consult your latest work.

I am very respectfully yours
O. Mason

Maj. General Pitt-Rivers, 4 Grosvenor Gardens, London, England.

Otis Tufton Mason (1838-1908) was an American ethnologist and curator at the Smithsonian Institute. He had worked at the US National Museum from 1884. According to wikipedia, he developed 'the culture area concept'.

Transcribed by AP June 2011