Hall of Extinct Monsters (Hall 2) with Diana of the 

 Tides on tlie loall in tlw distance and one of the few 

 benches in the building in the foreground. Taken after 

 1932 from the second floor rotunda, looking east. The 

 Zeuglodon has been displaced from center stage by the 

 Diplodocus. Triceratops is behind Diplodocus, and 

 behind it are both the skeleton mid papier-mache 

 Stegosaurus. 



An cail\ ,7( >/' of the Di))osaur Hall with Triteiatops mid 

 skeletons of the toothed whale (f oreground), f lanked by a 

 mastodon and Irish Elk. Date unknown, but before 1930 

 arid probably bef ore World W ar 1 , judging from the pa ucity 

 of material iti the hall. 



82 



proximately 450 slide mounts were made for such train- 

 ing centers. During the year [1943] nearly 200 Army 

 and Navy officers who were being assigned to malaria 

 survey or control units, or to other activities concerned 

 with human-health problems, have received some in- 

 struction or other help from personnel of this divi- 

 sion.'"* 



During the early days of the war, groups of six or 

 eight servicemen would appear at the north door, hav- 

 ing been given oral orders to report to the Museum, 

 but no specifics. The guards would call Perrygo, who 

 would take the men in hand and provide instruction 

 on how to collect fleas and parasites from small mam- 

 mals. They would go out in the field, set traps, and 

 catch mice; the bodies were put in bags while still warm — 

 before the fleas hopped off. After a week or so of this, 

 the official papers would arrive ordering the men to 

 learn how to collect fleas. Some of these trainees went 

 on to become professional biologists after the war. 



Survival Booklet 



An absolutely basic booklet in the war was the Navy's 

 Sumival on Land and Sea, to which every department of 

 the Museum contributed data. The Smithsonian's War 

 Background Studies was a major accomplishment, the 

 first volume being published six months after the war 

 began. For the first time, large numbers of American 

 armed forces were in places where the general concepts 

 of western civilization and culture did not apply. How 

 much these studies helped smooth cultural shock on 

 both sides can never be evaluated, but there is no doubt 

 that they were important. 



"Though it cannot be told here or now," Wetmore 

 wrote in 1943, "the story of the Museum's participation 

 in this war is one in which we can all take pride. But 

 the story has never been given in any detail, and those 

 who participated are mostly gone, like Julia Gardner 

 of the Geological Survey, who determined the launch- 

 ing site of a captured Japanese fire balloon by studying 

 the microfossils in a bag of its sand ballast. Rumor has 

 it that the migration routes of Pacific snapping shrimp 

 were plotted so that American submarines could nestle 

 up to them when threatened, for the sounds of these 

 crustaceans confused the sonar on Japanese ships. 



A Sad Year for the Museum 



The year 1943 was not a happy one at the Museum. 

 Miss Rathbun died, ending half a century of study of 

 crabs. And "with the death of Dr. Leonhard Stejneger 

 on February 28, the Department and the Museum suf- 

 fered an irreparable loss. He had been head curator of 

 the department of biology for the past 32 years. As man 

 and as scientist, he was noted for his breadth of knowl- 

 edge, depth of understanding, and, above all, for his 

 clear thinking.""* Because Stejneger had held a presi- 

 dential appointment, he was immune from Civil Service 

 regulations and was still an employee at the age of 



The Exhibits 



