SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 
J'ebruary 21, 193S 
Dear Dr. Schmitt: 
Since you are going to be in Panama on March 6, I thought 
I would trj^ to get another letter there in time for you. Mr. Eiyant 
ashed me today if I woiiLd write you, and I sgid that' I hadn't much to 
say but would try to fill a page. He said, "Well, make it official, 
enclose his bill of lading for his film and vials, and we will send it 
air mail." I said, "I haven't anything to say to him officially." 
But Mr. Bryant assured me that I wouldn't have to send a copy of this 
letter upstairs, so I can write anything I want to. 
I am enclosing the bill of lading. 
There really isn't much to tell you. Business has been 
quite slack. Mr. Shoemaker says we are feeling the depression. 
There has been very little first class mail, and we haven't received 
many specimens for identification. I have just finished all the 
cataloging except a half dozen bottles of bryozoans. hhen ve get 
enough to make it worth while, I will get the catalog from Dr. Eassler 
and finish Ihem up too. I filed one family of cards in the case behind 
your work table, and will get busy in earnest on the rest of them this 
afternoon. (Not that I expect to do them all this afternoon.') If I get 
everything done while you are away, maybe I'll get out my worms again. 
I don't feel quite comfortable about dropping them entirely. 
A letter came from Hcffmeister soon after you left thanking 
you for the coral work that you sent him in December. He says that 
the University of Rochester is going to finance an expedition for him 
and Ladd to the Lan Islands in the South Pacific. Thej^ will go next 
February and return the following September, then Ladd will be at 
Rochester for the next year working up the results. Lucky people! 
H. J. Hansen's paper on Acetes was published in the Jan. 15 
number of Jour. Wash. Acad. Sci. They sent us 100 separates for him. 
I looked up his letter in which he said that fifty separates woiild 
be sufiicient ior him. I took out ten for us here, and sent him the 
remainder. 
Mr. Shoemaker says to tell you that he is glad to see from 
your radiograms that you are getting some amphipods. • (I don't know 
whether that remark should be labeled "sweet sarcasm" or not. It 
sounded sort of like it when he said it.) 
