View looking north in Hall 

 27 , probably in the late 

 1 950s. The giant clam 

 fTridacna) /,s to the extreme 

 right. Beyond it, on the right 

 side, the alcoves have been 

 closed off to make offices for 

 the U.S. Department of 

 Agriculture entomologists. 

 Some cases of invertebrates 

 remain on the left, but 

 behind them are more offices, 

 with cases sticking up. Out 

 of sight at the corner of the 

 hall was the "Coral Room. " 



Boili Museum scientists and those from academic in- 

 stitutions received gi ants of PL 480 money, which con- 

 tiime to be helpful to the pursuit of science at the Mu- 

 seum. 



By June 1 966 the Smithsonian had formed a separate 

 Office of Oceanography and Limnology (the study of 

 lakes, ponds, and streams). Thus the Sorting Center 

 was no longer part of the Museum. A Mediterranean 

 Marine Sorting C^enter was established, supported by 

 foreign-nn rency funds made available under Public 

 Law 480. Looking back, the impression one gains is of 

 rapid expansion into a variety of fields. 1 he Interna- 

 tional Biological Program embraced the total en\ii()n- 

 ment, not just the oceans. The Smithsonian established 

 the Of fice (^f Ecology in July 1967, and Helmut Buech- 

 ner, as assistant director for ecology at the Museum, 

 developed a modest staff. A Chesapeake Bay Center 

 for Field Biology was started, and for its first year was 

 under the administration of the Museum. 



Fort Pierce Facility 



In 1968 Wallen became acting head of the Office of 

 Ecology, and in October of 1969 it merged with Ocean- 

 ography and Limnology to form the Office of Envi- 

 ronmental Sciences. Although Wallen continued for a 

 time as an assistant director, increasingly he had more 

 to do with oceanography overall and less to do directly 

 with the Museum. In the early 1970s he went to Fort 

 Pierce, Florida, to organize another Smithsonian bu- 

 reau, and later left the Institution. In 1981, after several 

 changes in administration, the Fort Pierce facility be- 

 came part of the National Museum of Natural History. 

 And when the Office of Environmental Sciences was 



closed in 1975, the Sorting Center again became part 

 of the Museum — essentially, another department. 



There was one other facet of big science that left a 

 physical change in the Museum. Within the Depart- 

 ment of Botany, the idea of a comprehensive "Flora of 

 North America" in a series of publications was devel- 

 oped. Several feasibility studies were done, and mo- 

 mentum tovvai d this major compilation began to build. 

 This project helped lay the groundwork for automatic 

 data processing, now a standard practice in the Mu- 

 seum. There were a few of fices opening up in the north 

 wing adjacent to the elevators. The exhibits people had 

 left the area in terrible shape, but cleaned up and decked 

 over, it would have made an ideal headquarters for the 

 "Flora." The construction was completed, but in 1973, 

 just before the move, the project expired. The "Hand- 

 book of North American Indians," big science in itself, 

 moved into the area. When this group moved to the 

 southwest corner of the ground floor, the public ed- 

 ucation staff inherited the space. 



The volumes of Smithsonian Year for 1970 and 1971 

 combined are not as thick as the volume for 1969. "As 

 in all research/education centers over the country, the 

 year was one of retrenchment, deferred needs, and 

 constantly revised priorities," the 1971 yearbook re- 

 ported. "Rather than lose any of its excellent staff, this 

 Museum chose to keep the people even though that 

 decision meant drastically reduced funding for items 

 other than salaries."' This was a hard choice. The era 

 of big science had dramatically increased the size of the 

 staff, but when the cuts came, people were more im- 

 portant than travel or even cases for the specimens. □ 



114 



The Exhibits 



