Chapter 4 



Moving Into 

 Valhalla 



LITTLE DETAIL IS PRESERVED as to the actual me- 

 chanics of the move to the north side of the Mall. 

 Loaded on wagons, specimens and cases scattered among 

 the Smithsonian Castle, the old National Museum, and 

 temporary storage facilities were transported to their 

 new home. While the east side of the building had been 

 the first to be built, the west side, facing the Washington 

 Monument, was the first to start filling up. 



On August 11, 1901, the day after permission to 

 occupy the third floor was obtained, the mollusk col- 

 lections began to be moved in. The division's ciuator, 

 William Healy Dall, measured the floor plans ("a hope- 

 less muddle")' late in May, but soon went off to Maine 

 for the summer, leaving assistant curator Paul Bartsch 

 to supervise the move. A long-time preparator in the 

 Department of Biology, John A. Mirguet, had a vivid 

 recollection of bringing a case full of moUusks from the 

 balcony and the north tower of the Castle to the third 

 floor of the new building and positioning it on a piece 

 of flooring newly laid down by the carpenter. The time 

 it took him to go back to the Castle and return with 

 another load was just sufficient for the carpenter to lay 

 another piece of flooring. These cases were awkward 

 pieces to move — six feet high and about ten feet wide, 

 with space for four stacks of drawers. 



When Dall returned in the fall he spent a month 

 unpacking his books and office collections, and by mid- 

 November was settled in his new quarters, actively piu - 

 suing his research. Not only was he an important figiu e 

 at the Museum, but his career casts some light on the 

 often-curious arrangement of research collections. 



In 1865 Dall, then twenty, came to Washington for 

 the first time, leaving shortly thereafter for more than 

 three years in Alaska. Upon his return he lived in the 

 south tower of the Castle, working on the collections 

 without pay. As there was no prospect of employment, 

 he joined the Coast Survey in 1871 and went back to 

 Alaska for three more years, this time to study the 



"Alcoholic specimen room, middle part of ground story, zvest 

 wing," Jrom United States National Museum Bulletin 

 80 (1913). This area is nozv used for preparation oj exhihit.s. 



Aleutian Islands. While working in the Castle after his 

 retinn, he continued to be paid by the Coast Survey 

 until 1884. Ihen he joined the United States Geological 

 Survey, but still remained in his Smithsonian office, 

 now in the north tower. While the recent mollusks were 

 moved to the west range of the new National Museum, 

 the collection of Ceno/oic fossils was moved there also. 

 As part of this work for the Geological Survey, Dall 

 curated these fossils and wrote a study of the fossils of 

 Florida. 



Dall was a f riend of T. Wayland Vaughan, another 

 Geological Survey employee and a specialist on corals. 

 Thus modern and Cenozoic corals were also housed 

 with the mollusks at first. Modern brachiopods were 

 an interest of Dall's, so they too were "mollusks"; and 

 because Paul Bartsch taught courses in economic para- 

 sitology at a local imiversity, parasitic worms were" mol- 

 lusks" for years." 



An Orderly Transfer 



Under Rathbun's direction, the move into the new 

 Museum was fairly orderly. "As it was desirable at first 

 to establish the scientific staff and the general collec- 

 tions in the building, the construction of the storage 

 and laboratory furniture was taken up and mostly fin- 

 ished before work on the exhibition cases was begim," 

 he reported in 1910.' 



Fire is one of the persistent worries of any museum 

 administrator. As a safeguard, cases for specimen stor- 

 age, formerly made of wood, were to be of steel or at 

 least covered with metal; covers on these cases inhibited 

 the pervasive dust. Steel shelving and steel racks were 

 also the ideal. Sulphin -tipped, strike-anywhere matches 

 were forbidden in the building, and several signs posted 

 in the attic proclaimed in large letters that smoking 

 there was grounds for instant dismissal. 



Rathbun's account of fiscal year 1910 went on: 



The moving of the reserve collections was 

 commenced in August, 1909, and by [july, 1910J 

 not only had it been practically completed, but the 

 systematic arrangement of the specimens in their 

 new quarters, either permanently or tentatively. 



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