2 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



The Smithsonian radio program, a weekly half-hour dramatiza- 

 tion of the Institution's researches and exhibits, put on the air 

 through the cooperation of the Office of Education and the National 

 Broadcasting Co., continued throughout the year with undiminished 

 popularity. Tlie little magazine issued in conjunction with the 

 broadcasts, presenting popular articles and reading lists on the sub- 

 jects treated, had reached a circulation of 150,000 for the June issue. 



SUMMARY OF THE YEAR'S ACTIVITIES OF THE BRANCHES OF THE 



INSTITUTION 



National Museum. — The total appropriation for the maintenance 

 of the Museum was $7G3,970, an actual increase of $28,228 over the 

 previous year. Specimens added to the collections, mainly as gifts 

 or through Smithsonian expeditions, numbered 361,951. It is diffi- 

 cult to select the outstanding accessions among this great amount of 

 valuable material, but the following may be mentioned as examples 

 of the interest of the year's additions: In anthroi:)ology, a valuable 

 collection of skeletal material resulting from Dr. Hrdlicka's archeo- 

 logical excavations in Alaska; in biology, welcome specimens of the 

 little-known fauna of Siam, including 1,100 birds, 800 fishes, as well 

 as mammals, insects, and other forms; in geology, specimens repre- 

 senting 29 distinct meteoric falls, obtained through the Roebling 

 fund, bringing the number of falls represented in the Museum to 635 ; 

 in arts and industries, the gondola of the successful stratosphere bal- 

 loon Explorer 11^ presented by the National Geographic Society. A 

 number of expeditions went out during the year in the interests of the 

 Museum's researches in anthropology, biology, and geology. These 

 were financed mainly by Smithsonian private funds or by the assist- 

 ance of friends of the Museum. The number of visitors to the sev- 

 eral Museum buildings for the first time in its history exceeded 

 2,000,000, the actual number for the year being 2,288,532. The Mu- 

 seum published an annual report, 2 bulletins, and 29 proceedings 

 separates. 



National Collection of Fine Arts.—Tho^ name of this bureau of the 

 Institution was changed by act of Congress on March 24, 1937, from 

 "National Gallery of Art" to "National Collection of Fine Arts", in 

 order that the former name might be assigned to the collection of 

 fine arts and the building to house it given by Andrew W. Mellon 

 to the Nation. The sixteenth annual meeting of the National 

 Gallery of Art Commission was held on December 8, 1936. Dr. 

 George Harold Edgell was nominated as a member of the Commis- 

 sion to succeed Joseph H. Gest, deceased. A number of portraits 

 and other art works were accepted by the Commission for the Gallery, 

 and two paintings purchased by the council of the National Academy 



