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, 1954 : 



COLLECTIONS 



During the year 632,243 specimens were added to the national collec- 

 tions and distributed among the six departments as follows : Anthro- 

 pology, 22,816; zoology, 307,361; botany, 137,609; geology, 54,399; 

 engineering and industries, 1,947; and history, 108,111. This increase 

 is smaller than last year, when the unusual increase resulted from the 

 accession of a large number of small fossils. This year's total is a 

 more normal annual accretion. Most of the accessions were received 

 as gifts from individuals or as transfers from Government depart- 

 ments and agencies. The Annual Report of the Museum, published 

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

 of which the more important are summarized below. Catalog entries 

 in all departments now total 35,302,807. 



Anthi'opology. — From an archeological site in Phillips County, 

 Kans., a collection of 8,751 objects representing a Woodland-horizon 

 ossuary was transferred by the River Basin Surveys, Bureau of Amer- 

 ican Ethnology. The large charred wooden samples from this burial 

 site yielded a radiocarbon date of 1343 (±240) years before the pres- 

 ent. This is the earliest date ever assigned to a pottery-bearing site 

 in the Central Plains. Over 800 important specimens from arche- 

 ological sites in Korea were presented by Maj. Howard A. MacCord. 

 By exchange with the American Museum of Natural History in New 

 York, the division of archeology received an important series of diag- 

 nostic specimens dated around 2500 B. C. from the Huaca Prieta site 

 along the north coast of Peru. 



An interesting gift from Mrs. Eva Jemison Mitchell to the division 

 of ethnology is a charm necklace worn by the Piegan Indian Stabs by 

 Mistake while engaged in horse stealing from neighboring tribes. 

 Attached to the necklace is a pouch of pungent prairie clover, regarded 

 by the Piegans as a potent talisman for obtaining horses. An ear 

 pendant of green jade worn by a Maori cliief and rare in museum 

 collections was donated by Comdr. P. J. Cox, Jr. By transfer from 

 the Army Medical Service Graduate School Expedition, through Dr. 



13 



