mantled. Buried in the plaster below the largest buffalo 

 was a tin box containing two 1 887 issues of the magazine 

 CosmopolUan, with articles by Hornaday. At the top of 

 one article, Hornaday had written: 



To my illustrious Successor: 



Dear Sir: 



Enclosed please find a brief and truthful account 

 of the capture of the specimens which comprise 

 this group. The old bull, the young cow and 

 yearling calf were killed by yours truly. 



When I am dust and ashes I beg you to protect 

 these specimens from deterioration and 

 destruction. Of course they are crude productions 

 in comparison with what you produce, but you 

 must remember that at this time (A.D. 1888, 

 March 7) the American School of Taxidermy has 

 only just been recognized. Therefore give the devil 

 his due, and revile not. 



W.T. Hornaday" 



The specimens had faded over the years and were 

 somewhat tattered. They could not be put into the new 

 exhibit, and iiidfalo obviously are large and hard to 

 store, so they were given to the Montana State Museum. 

 Their current status is uncertain. As the last wild Bisuii 

 h/\()n shot in America fc^r display in a museimi, the 

 group has considerable significance. Any buffalo skins 

 exhibited today are from domesticated herds, but it was 

 primarily as a result of Hornaday's concern that the 

 American buffalo was saved from extinction. The In- 

 stitution lost <i part of its historv when the specimens 

 left the i)uilding. 



More New Halls 



Major new manmial exhibits were badly needed. Leon- 

 hard Stejneger had been against habitat groups, ac- 

 cording to Edward Henderson, because he wanted the 

 visitor to i^e al)le to \ iew the animals iiom all sides. He 

 would not even permit a blue sky background to be 

 installed behind the uKjuntain goats. While a iew hab- 

 itat groups had been installed in the early 195Us, after 

 Stejneger's death, the halls as a whole reflected his prej- 

 udice. 



The North American Mammals hall, completed in 

 1957, was done in segments, part of it having opened 

 the year before. The hall included a display of Rocky 

 Mountain sheep that Secretary Walcott had obtained 

 for the Philadelphia Sescjuicentennial exhibit, and which 

 Perrygo had fn st worked on in 1925. During the in- 

 terval before the mammal halls were finished. Secretary 

 Carmichael held the annual dinner for the Board of 

 Regents in the west wing of the main building, giving 

 the regents a close-up view of the progress of the new 

 exhibits program. The two halls comprising "The World 

 of Mammals" were opened in 1959. That work was 

 supervised by Henry W. Setzer, an outspoken mam- 

 malogist hired in 1948 whose principal interest was 



small mammals from Africa. 



George Switzer and Paul E. Desautels were respon- 

 sible for the Hall of Gems and Minerals, opened in the 

 summer of 1958. Switzer, who joined the staff in 1948, 

 became the first head of Mineral Sciences when the 

 I^epartment of Geology was split into departments of 

 Paleobiology and Mineral Sciences. Desautels was hired 

 in 1957, in part to assist with the new hall, and he later 

 went on to increase the holdings of gems and minerals 

 significantly. Rolland Hower of Exhibits designed the 

 new display cases. Understatement being an old Smith- 

 sonian tradition, the case introducing the world's finest 

 mineral collection was labeled simply "The Smithsonian 

 Mineral Collection." Eive months after the hall opened, 

 the Hope Diamond was presented to the fiistitution 

 and installed in a safe specially built into the display. 

 The Jade R(jom, just to the north of the gem hall, also 

 opened in 1958. 



By this time the new exhibit halls had begun to crowd 

 the old ones, and the National Collection of Eine Arts, 

 while holding on to Hall 10 on the first floor, gave up 

 some space on the second floor in Hall 22. "Twenty oil 

 portraits of World War H leaders by John C. Johansen 

 and pastel drawings of the Civil War Veterans by Walter 

 Beck have been removed from the second floor gallery 

 and are to be installed at the south end of the foyer 

 together with the miniature portraits in specially lighted 

 cases," read the National (Collection's report for 1958.'" 

 Eor what was supposed to have been a temporary gal- 

 lery to have lasted more than thirty years does afford 

 some perspective on just how badly the new exhibits 

 program was needed. 



June 1961 was the crest of the wave. Waldo Wedel 

 opened a hall of American Indian life on the east side 

 ot the second floor, "North American Archeology 1." 

 On the east side of the first floor, a hall of invertebrates 

 and plants, supervised by G. A. Cooper and opened on 

 June 6, constituted a quantum jump over the old fossil 

 hall; its stellar attraction was a series of wax reconstruc- 

 tions of sea-bottom life. 



"The Age of Mammals in North America," which 

 opened the same night, was the project of Lewis Gazin, 

 who had joined the staff in 1932, spent a long time in 

 the war, and returned in 1946, the same year Gilmore 

 died. This hall included the first of a series of mag- 

 nificant murals painted on plaster by Jay H. Matternes. 

 Even twenty years ago it was difficult to find a plasterer 

 who could prepare the proper rough coat and finish 

 coat for a fresco surface, yet this specialized art is even 

 more refined today; one can scarcely tell where the case 

 ends and the background begins. W.H. Holmes would 

 have appreciated the Matternes mural, a combination 

 of excellent science and excellent art. 



An alcove of fossil fishes and amphibians, opened 

 informally a year earlier, was polished up by the ad- 

 dition of a diorama and included in the grand opening. 

 The late David Dunkle, who had joined the Department 



92 



The Exhibits 



