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Show XXXVI REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. constructed houses. One of the causes of a high rats of mortality is the disposition on the part of many of the Indians to rely upon their native medicine men, and to defer applying to the agency physician until disease has made such inroads upon their strength that it is impossible to benefit them by the most skillful treatment. The greatest obstacle with which physicians in the Indian country have to contend is the al-most universal belief in fipirits prevalent among the Indians. They be. lieve that all diseases are caused by evil ~pi r i tsa, nd that the only sure way to cure a malady is to employ a medicine man who possesses a spirit more powerful than the one causing the disease. This beliefisfos-tared and encouraged by the native doctors, who, while they frequently apply tothewhite physicians for their own ailments, tell theirpeople that though 'cthe white man's drugs may be good for white man, they are poisonfor Indian." In some of thetribe8 many of the Indianscolne tothe physician for medicine and then c ~ l iln their own doctors, believing that the rattling of gourds and bones, beating of drums, and siuging by the merliciue men are val~iableaidtso the white man's remedies. Oould the belief in sorcery and evil spirits be overcome, a long stride would be made in the work of civilimtio~l. No one has greater opportunities in this direction than the agency physician, who, in additiou to being skilled in his profession, should be a ma,n mith such qnalities of head and heart as to win and retain the confidence of the Indians under his care. Owing to the great aversionof the Indians to the knife as e remedial agent, surgical operations are not of frequent occurrence, and deformi-ties are quite common. The physicians almost unanimously recommend that suitable hos-pital buildings be erected at such agencies as now have none. Small hospitals could be erected at slight expense, and would without donbt be a great protection to the agency schools, and would tend to prevent the spread of contagious and infectious diseases, which are often nn-manageable when scattered through a number of different camps on a large reservation. COAL ON THE WHITE MOUNTAIN RESERVATION IN ARIZONA. By the Indian appropriation,act of July 4, 1834, the Secretary of the Interior was authorized to detail a proper person from the employ&s of the Geological Burvey, and also to appoint a suitable person not then in the emplox of the Government, to examine and ruport upon the char-acter, extent, thickness, and depth of the coal veins on the White Mouot-ain Reservation, the value of the coal per ton on the clump, and the best method to utilize and dispose of the same, and the sum of $2,500 was appropriated for that purpose. Under this authority a Commission composed of Michael Bannon, of Baltimore, Md., and Charles D. Wal-cott, a paleontologist in the Geological Survey, waH sent to Arizona to make the required examination and report. Full instructions were given for their guidanoa, dated August 8,1884, approved by the De- |