26 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1956 



Fredericksburg. The investigation is being carried on in collabora- 

 tion with Prof. Oscar H. Darter, department of history, Mary Wash- 

 ington College, and C. Malcolm Watkins, associate curator of 

 ethnology, U. S. National Museum, under a grant from the American 

 Philosophical Society. The excavations have revealed the foundation 

 of a house of large size which seems definitely to have been the one 

 occupied by John Mercer during the first half of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury. This determination is based mainly on documentary records 

 together with cultural objects found, such as wine bottles bearing 

 seals with Mercer's initials and the date 1737. A number of smaller 

 house sites, probably dependencies of the main house, have been 

 found, and in moving the earth a large amount of cultural material 

 of the period was discovered. The excavations also revealed a series 

 of walls, extending for hundreds of feet, which appear to represent 

 lot lines and may indicate the layout of the original town shown on 

 two existing surveys dated 1691 and 1731. 



At the University of Michigan during the first week of February 

 1956, Dr. Egbert H. Walker, associate curator of phanerogams, con- 

 ferred with Dr. W. H. Wagner relative to certain species of ferns 

 found on Okinawa and the southern Ryukyu Islands, which will be 

 included in his flora of that region. Subsequently he worked with 

 Dr. F. G. Meyer and Dr. J. Ohwi at the Missouri Botanical Garden, 

 St. Louis, in the editing of a manuscript translation of a Flora of 

 Japan. 



Edward C. Kendall, associate curator of crafts and industries, 

 systematically studied the historical agricultural implements dis- 

 played in the Centennial of Farm Mechanization at Michigan State 

 University, East Lansing, in August 1955. Consultations were held 

 with representatives of agricultural implement manufacturers for the 

 purpose of procuring historically important implements to illustrate 

 chronological stages in the mechanization of farming. 



Dr. Robert P. Multhauf, acting head curator of engineering and 

 industries, consulted with Orville R. Hagans, horologist of "Clock 

 Manor," Denver, regarding the repair of clocks in the national collec- 

 tions. At San Francisco during August 1955 he studied the exhibits 

 in the Maritime Museum and conferred with the director, Karl 

 Kortum, regarding the contemplated extensive display of land trans- 

 portation. Continuing his search for an old Pelton turbine for the 

 Power Hall, Dr. Multhauf conferred with Richard Goyne, owner of 

 the Miners Foundry, Nevada City, Calif., where these turbines were 

 reportedly first manufactured. A wooden-wheel type which may 

 represent one of the oldest Pelton turbines still in existence was located. 

 During the last week of October 1955 Dr. Multhauf visited several 

 sites in New England in an effort to locate old water turbines for dis- 

 play in the reconstructed Power Hall. Nine old sites where water 



