28 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1957 



staffs of the respective departments of the universities of Mississippi, 

 South Carolina, and North Carolina. On April 15-17, 1957, he ex- 

 amined the collection of astrolabes, sundials, and other antique instru- 

 ments now owned by Eugene Hoffman and Miss Margaret Hoffman, 

 New York City, and studied the Samuel V. Hoffman collection of in- 

 struments at the Museum of the New York Historical Society. 



On May 24, 1957, Dr. Price examined physical apparatus, including 

 some 20 pieces said to have been made or used by Secretary Joseph 

 Henry, housed in the Palmer Physical Laboratory of Princeton Uni- 

 versity. Through the kindness of L. C. Eichner, he was enabled to 

 see the workshop machinery used by Henry Fitz, one of the earliest 

 and most important astronomical telescope makers in this country, 

 and now in the possession of his granddaughter, Mrs. Willard H. 

 Howell of Southold, L. I. Sufficient material has been preserved to 

 permit a restoration of the original shop in the proposed Hall of 

 Physics. 



Enquiries relative to the existence of early scientific instruments 

 were made April 30-May 12, 1957, by Dr. Price at the University of 

 Chicago, Museum of Science and Industry, Argonne Atomic Labora- 

 tories, and the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, and the University of 

 Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. Among the items of especial interest ex- 

 amined were Italian and Danish facsimiles of important historic 

 instruments made for the Century of Progress Exposition (1933- 

 34) which are now mostly in storage. A continuous search is being 

 made for historic instruments illustrating the important develop- 

 ments in experimental physics and in astronomy. 



The recent renovation of the exhibition halls of the Wistar Institute 

 Museum, Philadelphia, was examined by Frank A. Taylor, Assistant 

 Director, on May 29, 1957. He paid particular attention to the 

 techniques utilized for improvement of the exhibits. 



To locate significant early types of tools as well as information re- 

 garding their inventors and their manufacturers, Robert S. Wood- 

 bury, curator of engineering, visited manufacturing firms, institutes, 

 and museums in Providence, Worcester, Sturbridge, Cambridge, and 

 New Haven, July 27 to August 1, 1956. A number of individuals in- 

 terested in the history of tools were consulted, most of whom indi- 

 cated a desire to assist in the program. Machine tools and machine 

 shops in the Greenfield Village and the Ford Museum at Dearborn, 

 Mich., were studied by Curator Woodbury during August 1956. 



Inspection of the 1874 machine shop exhibited by the Cincinnati 

 Milling Machine Co., the machine-tool exhibits of the Chicago 

 Museum of Science and Industry, and the automated foundry of the 

 Ford engine plant at Cleveland was undertaken from February 11 to 

 14, 1957. Plans for the hall of tools in the Museum of History and 



