H. Adair Feldmann and 

 Beatrice Burch in the Sinit/i- 

 soniati Oceattographic Sort- 

 ing Center, l^his photograph 

 was taken in the early 1970s 

 at the Navy Yard in south- 

 east Washington, where the 

 Sorting Center moved before 

 the Lamont Street building 

 was vacated. Now the Sort- 

 ing Center is in the Museum 

 Support Center at Sih'er 

 Hill, MaryUuul. 



assistant director of the Museum in 1962, the special 

 position of Assistant Director for Oceanography was 

 created. Eugene Wallen transferred from the Atomic 

 Energy Commission to the Museum to fill this post. 

 While at the Commission he had been a strong sup- 

 porter of the Museum, and had provided several large 

 grants. 



Wallen was an excellent organizer and wasted no time 

 when presented with the opportunity to develop the 

 Museum's oceanography program. "The establishment 

 and functioning of the Smithsonian Oceanographic 

 Sorting Center is perhaps the most important single 

 accomplishment of the first year of the oceanography 

 program," read the Annual Report published in 1964. 

 "The Sorting Center is designed to provide assistance 

 of several kinds to taxonomic specialists both in Federal 

 and non-Federal establishments. A principal function 

 is to sort to practical taxonomic level the multitude of 

 plants and animals collected on oceanic cruises.'" The 

 Sorting Center, opened in 1962, was on the second lloor 

 of the Lamont Street laundry building. Under the en- 

 ergetic direction of H. Adair Feldmann, it soon became 

 an effective and widely known unit. Before the ento- 

 mologists left Lamont Street in 1 965, the Sorting Center 

 moved to a building in the old Navy Yard in southeast 

 Washington. During the summer of 1985, another move 

 was made to the Museum Support Center. 



With .so many organisms coming into the collections, 

 the Museum could not hope to study them all. Never- 

 theless, there was good reason to increase the staff and 



hire specialists in groups that had not been studied by 

 earlier curators. As one measure of growth, in fiscal 

 year 1964 Zoology listed twenty-four names, even though 

 a separate Department of Entomology had been estab- 

 lished that year. Fhe following year the old Department 

 of Zoology was split into two, and the last of the seven 

 departments of the present Museum emerged. In fiscal 

 year 1965, when this division occurred, there were sev- 

 enteen people in Vertebrate Zoology and sixteen in 

 Invertebrate Zoology. Paleobiology also added special- 

 ists on fossils and marine sedimentology during these 

 years. 



"Perhaps the most obvious of the changes in the first 

 three years of the Smithsonian's research effort in 

 oceanography," Smithsonian Year for 1965 explained, 

 "has been a large increase in staff involvement in bi- 

 ological and geological oceanography activities. Not only 

 has the number of scientists involved in the oceanog- 

 raphy program tripled in these three years, but the 

 number of organizational units included in the pro- 

 gram also has tripled. Whereas before, the Institution 

 had extremely restricted capability to treat the nearly 

 100 major groups of marine organisms, selective re- 

 cruiting has resulted in the addition of capabilities to 

 examine and carry out research on groups which could 

 not be included in earlier oceanographic efforts."'- 



A positive event of 1966 was the decision by Congress 

 that "Public Law 480 funds" — foreign currency owed 

 the United States that nuist be spent in the country 

 repaying the debt — could be used for biological work. 



Big Science: Deep Space, Deep Waters 



