16 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1947 



made by Leroy MeCallum, an F-6-F Grumman "Hellcat" made in the 

 Navy Department, and a rotary-winged craft named "Hiller-copter" 

 made by Stanley Hiller, Jr. 



History. — Several interesting additions made to the costumes col- 

 lection include a waistcoat and knee breeches of mauve satin and a dark 

 blue and white silk waistcoat worn by Simon Serre in Cette, France, 

 as a page boy about the mid-eighteenth century; a child's dress and 

 pair of shoes of about 1850 ; a black silk dress of about 1860, a trousseau 

 of 1875; and a white satin dress worn in the White House by Mrs. 

 John Quincy Adams during her husband's administration as Presi- 

 dent. Added to the military collections were early nineteenth-century 

 chapeaux, epaulets, sash, coat, and trousers; a United States Marine 

 Corps officer's sword of the early part of the present century ; and two 

 Chinese scrolls that had been presented to Gen, James H. Doolittle in 

 commemoration of the American air raid on Tokyo in 1942. From 

 the White House there was transferred a historic passenger elevator in- 

 stalled in 1902. The numismatic collection was increased by 30 speci- 

 mens of 1946 United States bronze, nickel, and silver coins and by 400 

 pieces of German paper currency of the World War I period. About 

 3,000 stamps were added to the philatelic collection, about 1,300 more 

 than last year. Of particular interest was a sheet of 50 3-cent Smith- 

 sonian Centennial commemoratives, formally presented to the Institu- 

 tion by the Post Office Department at a special ceremony on August 10, 

 1946. 



EXFLORATION AND FIELD WORK 



One of the most encouraging phases of the Museum's work during 

 the year was an opportunity to resume field work, interrupted by the 

 war. 



Under a grant from Ernest N. May, it was possible for the curator 

 of ethnology, Herbert W. Krieger, to renew investigations of fifteenth- 

 century historic Indian village sites and some of the early Spanish set- 

 tlements in the West Indies. This Caribbean program developed from 

 an earlier Antillean project sponsored by the late Dr. W. L. Abbott 

 which began in 1928 and was terminated in 1938. Dr. Abbott's inter- 

 est was aroused by the earlier discoveries there by W. H. Gabb in 

 1869-71 of kitchen middens containing deposits of animal bones and 

 aboriginal pottery fragments. While engaged in the development of 

 the ensuing Smithsonian project for the excavation of these cave 

 middens and of other former Indian village sites in the Greater An- 

 tilles and in the Bahamas, the need became apparent to the curator 

 for a chronological culture-trait analysis and for a more complete ori- 

 entation as to the location of historic Indian village sites, and also 

 for a study of Spanish settlements associated with the early colonial 



