Report on the United States National 

 Museum 



Sir : I have the honor to submit the following report on the con- 

 dition and operations of the United States National Museum for the 

 fiscal year ended June 30, 1955 : 



COLLECTIONS 



During the year 7,596,646 specimens were added to the national col- 

 lections and distributed among the six departments as follows : An- 

 thropology, 34,450; zoology, 363,500; botany, 58,526; geology, 7,- 

 056,121 ; engineering and industries, 5,609 ; and history, 78,440. This 

 increase is markedly greater than last year and results from the col- 

 lection in Europe during the year of several million minute fossils 

 known as Foraminifera. The other accessions for the most part were 

 received as gifts from individuals or as transfers from Government 

 departments and agencies. The Annual Report of the Museum, pub- 

 lished as a separate document, contains a detailed list of the year's 

 accessions, of which the more important are summarized below. Cat- 

 alog entries in all departments now total 42,864,645. 



Anthropology. — A unique gift to the division of archeology was 

 a figure of a human being made from wood, cloth, and basketry, re- 

 covered from a grave along the central coast of Peru and dating from 

 about A. D. 1100. This unusual object was presented by Mrs. Vir- 

 ginia Morris Pollak as a gift from the Arthcr Morris Collection. A 

 series of large archeological collections taken from excavation projects 

 in various parts of the Missouri Basin has been transferred to the 

 Museum by the River Basin Surveys. A willow-splint figure of a 

 quadruped, probably prehistoric, from a cave in Grand Canyon, was 

 presented by Dr. J. D. Jennings, University of Utah. 



The division of ethnology received from Ralph Solecki nimierous 

 ethnological objects which he collected from his native employees 

 and their relatives among the Shirwani Kurds of Kurdistan while he 

 was conducting archeological work in Iraq. Also accessioned were 

 28 items of Afghan material culture, consisting of pottery, basketry, 

 weaving, and quilted clothing, a Khyber knife, and Mohammedan cult 

 objects, collected in 1954 by the donor. Miss May Wilder, from 

 villagers and country folk in Afghanistan. Another gift was a well- 

 documented collection of 34 miscellaneous ethnographical specimens 



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