> I'm embarrassed to have to ask this, but the references I have at >hand, including the WWWeb, have failed me: > In a biography of naturalist Georg Steller, who sailed with Vitus >Bering, there is a reference to the United States National Museum. That >sounds familiar to me, but I can't place it and haven't been able to >trace it. > So (blush), can somebody tell me where 'tis? US National Museum was an old name used to identify the Smithsonian Institution. Many old tags and ID labels on objects and specimens will have "USNM" stamped or written on them. These old tags are objects in their own right. I can't say when they stopped calling it the US National Museum, probably when it branched out into more than one. I could be wrong. Current or recent SI employees can elaborate better than I. Any thoughts, Adrienne? HBC ***************************************** Henry B. Crawford Curator of History [log in to unmask] Museum of Texas Tech University 806/742-2442 Box 43191 FAX 742-1136 Lubbock, TX 79409-3191 *********All opinions expressed are mine**********