28 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



many as a result of the Historic American Merchant Marine Survey 

 ■Nvork, also were added. For the transportation group came the first 

 Franklin automobile (no. 3) to leave the factory in 1902, the oldest 

 existing example of that car ; a gig phaeton of about 18i0 ; and a fine 

 operating scale model of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad's Royal 

 Blue train. Many objects of historical radio equipment, phono- 

 graphs, typewriters, calculating machines, clocks, tools, and electrical 

 devices continued to come in, as well as over 2,000 specimens pertain- 

 ing to textiles, organic chemistry, wood technology, history of agricul- 

 ture, and medicine, and about 500 photographs, prints, drawings, en- 

 gravings, books, tools, and other material relating to the graphic 

 arts. 



Hutory. — Nearly 2,000 objects of historic and antiquarian interest 

 and value were received, many of them pertaining to the lives and 

 public careers of eminent Americans and other historic characters, 

 such as Lafayette, Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon I, and President 

 Benjamin Harrison. The numismatic collection was increased by 

 321 coins, including an important series of United States commemora- 

 tive half-dollars; and the philatelic collection by 1,384 stamps, most 

 of which were specimens of current foreign postage stamps trans- 

 ferred from the Post Office Department. 



EXPLORATIONS AND FIELD WORK 



The scientific explorations of the year were financed mainly by 

 grants from the invested funds of the Smithsonian Institution or by 

 the assistance of friends of the Museum. 



Anthropology. — Henry B. Collins, Jr., assistant curator of ethnol- 

 ogy, in October 1936 terminated his archeological investigations on 

 St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, conducted under the joint auspices of 

 the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian Institution. 

 Previous work on St. Lawrence Island and at Point Barrow had 

 revealed the existence of an ancient but highly developed Eskimo 

 culture, with intermediate stages between it and the modern Eskimo. 

 One objective of the expedition was to search for pre-Eskimo re- 

 mains in the vicinity of Bering Strait, where man may first have 

 entered the American Continent. Mr. Collins and his assistants, 

 James A. Ford and Harrison Prindle, obtained definite evidence on 

 the sequence of prehistoric Eskimo cultures, but nowhere did they 

 find traces of human occupancy antedating that of the Eskimo. 



From October to February, Herbert W. Krieger, curator of ethnol- 

 ogy, conducted archeological investigations in the Bahaman Archi- 

 pelago under a Smithsonian gi-ant. He excavated kitchen middens 

 and burials on Long Island, Inagua, and New Providence Island and 

 uncovered data pointing to a close cultural contact between the Luca- 



