Beth Miles installing a sun- 

 dial shell (Architectonica) 

 in Splendors of Nature 

 (Hall 10 A), with Carl 

 Alexander looking on, 1978. 



my blood does not boil very much about the Smith- 

 sonian's shortcomings."*' 



The Museum got through the hearings satisfactorily, 

 and possibly as a result of the experience tried a dif- 

 ferent budgetary approach. New research projects, 

 mainly in environmental science, were specified in the 

 proposed budget, and some of them were accepted by 

 Congress. The early 1970s thus brought additions to 

 the scientific staf f , though not on the large scale of the 

 mid-1960s. About 105 professional scientists are now 

 on the staff; the numbers fluctuate in reaction to var- 

 ious hiring f reezes, but the last decade has not seen any 

 dramatic change. 



Growth by transfer, quite another matter, has oc- 

 curred, with many services coming under the jurisdic- 

 tion of the director in 1973. If one looks simply at 

 budget figures, the Museum would seem to have ex- 

 panded sixfold over the last twenty years. But if one 

 allows for salary increases, effects of inflation, and 

 transfer of people and services, little change in the 

 available funds can be discerned. 



Exhibit Halls Undergo Change 



In 1973, after the "rearticulation" of various services, 

 the Museum once again had its own exhibits group. 

 Shortly thereafter a committee was formed to develop 

 a long-range plan for the halls. Its chairman, Leo J. 

 Hickey, a paleobotanist, is now director of the Peabody 

 Museum at Yale, and the vice-chairman, Donald Duck- 

 worth, an entomologist, is now director of the Bishop 

 Museum in fiawaii. 



An article in The Torch, the Smithsonian's staff news- 

 paper, outlined what the committee planned to change: 

 "In the past, NMNH seldom attempted to clearly iden- 

 tify the underlying concepts of its exhibit halls. Objects 

 were arranged in cases by the curators because they 

 were the best, or the prettiest, or because they came 

 from the same South Seas island. Occasionally a case 

 would be organized around an interesting idea but fre- 

 quently it would not be closely i elated to the cases around 

 it. The effect is that our halls don't create a broad 

 concept of natural history in a way the public can un- 

 derstand."' 



"Muderyi Times'' 



119 



