OCR Text |
Show ties, colleges, or other recognized scientific or educational institutions, with a view to increasing the knowledge of such objects, and that the gatherings shall be made for permanent preservation in public museums. Copies of this act have been furnished agents aqd others in charge of Indian reservations in the Southwest, and they 'have been directed to post them, as well as to promulgate the information in any other way practicable. Before the passage of this act the Office had kept up an earnest effort to prevent, by such means as lay within its reach, the despolia-tsion of relics on Indian reservations. Last year I caused to be posted conspicuously on all the reservations where ruins were known or be-lieved to exist, placards reading as follows : WARNING. DEPARTMENOFT THE INTERIOR, OFFICEO F INDIAANF FAIRS, Washington, D. C., April 28, 1905. These lands form part of and are included in the Indian reservation. All persons are prohibited, under penalty of law, from coming upon or cross-ing these lands, except under special permission from this Department, or from committing any trespass, injury, waste, or damage of any kind to the cliff dwellings, ruins, or other objects of antiquity, the caves or other natural curi-osities, or any of the public proper@ hereon, and such injury, waste, or damage will be held, for present purposes, to include any excavation, removal, deface-ment, or other disturbance thereof, and any attempt at the same of any kind or description whatsoever. F. E. LEEWP, Cmmisaioner of Indian Affairs. ~p pmv e d: E. A. HITCHCOCK, Becretnry of the Interior. Superintendents and agents were also instructed in effect that " reports have reached this Office that employees and others have been engaged in digging up vases and similar remains of antiquity and selling them. It is desired that all Government employees and others who may be temporarily on the reservation be fully cautioned and warned that this practise must be stopt, and that if the admonition is not heeded they mill be summarily dealt with." It has been the policy of the Office to refuse to recommend other than Government scientists and persons connected with recognized . scientific institutions for permits to enter reservations for the examin-ation of ruins, the excavation of archeological sites, and the collec-tion of objects of antiquity, and scientists not connected with the Government have obtained permission only under certain conditions. Last fall the president of the Southwest Society of the Archeo-logical Institute of America requested that its curator, Dr. Frank L. Palmer, he allowed to prosecute explorations and researches of arch- |