34 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1957 



Life in Early America. Home furnishings, tools, crafts, and arts of 

 early settlers are displayed to illustrate the many elements in the do- 

 mestic and community life of the period. 



Secretary Carmichael and Dr. Melville Bell Grosvenor, President 

 of the National Geographic Society and grandson of Alexander 

 Graham Bell, during the morning of March 11, 1957, invited the 

 visiting public to view the recently completed exhibit produced and 

 presented by the Bell System and the independent telephone industry 

 to illustrate the invention and development of the equipment required 

 for the operation of a modern telephone system. 



On March 27, 1957, Dr. Carmichael and Dr. Kobert P. Multhauf 

 formally opened the Hall of Power Machinery. In this hall, moving 

 engines and models, murals, diagrams, and schematic mechanisms are 

 displayed to show technological development from primitive wind- and 

 water-powered machines to the steam and gas turbines. 



The recently completed Hall of North American Mammals was 

 viewed by a number of guests on April 30, 1957, following a brief cere- 

 mony at which the contributions to mammalogical research by the staff 

 of the Institution during the preceding 100 years were reviewed by 

 Dr. Carmichael and Dr. Kellogg. In this hall 12 habitat groups with 

 scenic mural backgrounds present the larger native mammals of major 

 importance to the American pioneer. 



During the year seven new exhibit units were completed for installa- 

 tion in the recently constructed North American Indian Hall, in which 

 life-size ethnic groups will depict the everyday activities and the cul- 

 tures of the Indians of eastern, central, and northern United States, 

 Canada, and Alaska, and of the Eskimo tribes of the Arctic regions. 

 Two Egyptian bull mummies installed in the Hall of Old World 

 Archeology seem to be especially interesting to school children. Tem- 

 porary revisions have been made in the North American Archeology 

 halls. 



Detailed plans for the two halls of the World of Mammals were 

 carried forward by Dr. Henry W. Setzer, associate curator of mam- 

 mals. Progress was made in the planning for the marine exhibits that 

 will occupy the large central hall of the west wing of the Natural 

 History Building. 



A series of dioramas of fossil marine life will be shown in the Hall 

 of Invertebrate Paleontology. Two of the completed dioramas recon- 

 struct the life present on sea bottoms during the Middle Cambrian 

 and Permian time. Construction work on the Gem and Mineral Hall 

 required removal of the materials heretofore exhibited there. A part 

 of the popular gem collection was placed temporarily on exhibition on 

 the first floor near the rotunda. Plans for the Hall of Lower Verte- 

 brates were revised to provide display space for newly acquired mate- 



