30 ANNUAL KEPOilT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION", 1931 



the Department of State. The United States Treasury Department 

 transferred to the national collections bronze copies of the gold 

 medal awarded by Congress to Col. Charles A. Lindbergh in recog- 

 nition of his services to the science of aeronautics and of the gold 

 medal awarded by the Congress to Lincoln Ellsworth for his trans- 

 polar flight in the dirigible Norge in May, 1926. The philatelic 

 collections received 7,855 specimens during the year, the majority 

 having come by transfer from the Post Office Department. 



CHANGES IN EXHIBITIONS 



In the paleontological series of the Museum exhibition the most 

 important addition has been the installation of the large dinosaur 

 Diplodocus longus^ collected at the Dinosaur National Monument, 

 Utah. This specimen as mounted in our halls measures more than 

 TO feet in length and stands 12 feet 5 inches high, with the head and 

 neck rising to a still greater height. The base has been so arranged 

 that at the shoulders and at the hips visitors may walk through 

 beneath the skeleton. This specimen, found embedded in a very 

 hard and difficult rock, has required nearly six years for preparation. 



An important change in the historical series has been the transfer 

 of the costumes collection to a larger hall, where the cases containing 

 the series of dresses of wives of the Presidents are now installed in 

 a double row facing one another. This collection is one of the most 

 popular in the Museum and shows to excellent advantage in the large 

 space now available for it. 



The numismatic collections have been transferred to the smaller 

 room formerly occupied by the costumes, where the light is much 

 better, allowing the coin and medal series to be viewed more readily, 

 especially on days when artificial light is necessary. The philatelic 

 collection also has been moved to a location where it is much more 

 easily available. 



EXPLORATIOXS AND FIEIJ) WORK 



Field investigations carried on as usual throughout the year have 

 been concerned with a wide variety of interests, and though mainly 

 in the biological field, have included those researches concerned with 

 man and with fossil animals of various kinds, as well as with various 

 groups in botany and zoology. The work has been financed princi- 

 pally through grants from the general income of the Smithsonian 

 Listitution, assisted by contributions from interested individuals, 

 while certain projects were financed from special funds of the Insti- 

 tution. Limited assistance has been given from the annual govern- 

 mental appropriations of the National Museum, but aid from this 

 source has been relatively small and has concerned only a few of tlie 



