Report on the United States National 
Museum 
Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report on the condi- 
tion and operations of the United States National Museum for the 
fiscal year ended June 30, 1958 : 
COLLECTIONS 
Because of the reorganization of the Museum effected at the be- 
ginning of the year (as described on p. 48), it was necessary to re- 
assign some of the specimens among the now eight departments of 
the Museum. This accounts for lower totals in some instances. 
Specimens were added to the national collections and distributed 
among the departments as follows: Anthropology, 4,373; zoology, 
525,458; botany, 57,795; geology, 43,275; armed forces history, 1,283; 
arts and manufactures, 230; civil history, 5,858,683; and science and 
technology, 3,457. Most of the specimens were received as gifts from 
individuals or as transfers from Government departments and agen- 
cies. The Annual Report of the Director of the Museum, published 
as a separate document, contains a detailed list of the year’s acces- 
sions, of which the more important are summarized below. Catalog 
entries in all departments now total 50,963,147. 
Anthropology.—One of the most unique accessions received in the 
department of anthropology is a set of casts of the restorable parts 
of a Neanderthal skeleton from northern Iraq. The skeleton casts 
of this newly discovered fossil man represent the work of two men in 
the department: Dr. Ralph S. Solecki, recently appointed associate 
curator in the division of archeology, who made the discovery in his 
excavation of Shanidar Cave in northern Iraq; and the curator of 
physical anthropology, Dr. T. Dale Stewart, who went to Baghdad, 
restored the original skull and long bones, and made plaster replicas. 
These casts, the first to reach this country, were donated to the na- 
tional collections by the Directorate General of Antiquities, Iraq. 
The division of ethnology received a special selection of objects 
from Palau in the Caroline Islands through Dr. Delmas Nucker, High 
Commissioner, Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. This accession 
includes a model abai or men’s house, wooden bowls, tortoise-shell 
money, and native implements. From the Aaron and Lillie Straus 
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