Natural Resources

The natural resources collections offer centuries of evidence about how Americans have used the bounty of the American continent and coastal waters. Artifacts related to flood control, dam construction, and irrigation illustrate the nation's attempts to manage the natural world. Oil-drilling, iron-mining, and steel-making artifacts show the connection between natural resources and industrial strength.

Forestry is represented by saws, axes, a smokejumper's suit, and many other objects. Hooks, nets, and other gear from New England fisheries of the late 1800s are among the fishing artifacts, as well as more recent acquisitions from the Pacific Northwest and Chesapeake Bay. Whaling artifacts include harpoons, lances, scrimshaw etchings in whalebone, and several paintings of a whaler's work at sea. The modern environmental movement has contributed buttons and other protest artifacts on issues from scenic rivers to biodiversity.

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1943-09-20
ID Number
AG.A.7591
accession number
198812
catalog number
A.7591
Charles Greeley Abbot (1872–1973), the second director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the fifth secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, spent his scientific career measuring the intensity of solar radiation and seeking to correlate solar changes with weather c
Description
Charles Greeley Abbot (1872–1973), the second director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the fifth secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, spent his scientific career measuring the intensity of solar radiation and seeking to correlate solar changes with weather conditions on the earth. He was also interested in the practical use of solar radiation. This cooker, which he built in 1940, uses a cylindrical aluminum mirror that is mounted parallel to the earth's axis to collect solar energy and focus it on a pyrex tube that is filled with a chlorinated benzene ("arochlor"); the energy is then transmitted to a square oven in which cakes and cookies could be baked. Abbot obtained a patent (#2,247,830) on this cooker in 1941.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1940
user
Abbot, Charles Greeley
maker
Abbot, Charles Greeley
ID Number
PH.334632
catalog number
334632
patent number
2,247,830
accession number
312088
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1946
ID Number
AG.A.7554
accession number
198812
catalog number
A.7554
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1940-04-15
ID Number
AG.A.7552
catalog number
A.7552
accession number
198812
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1940
ID Number
AG.A.7593
accession number
198812
catalog number
A.7593
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1944-10-12
ID Number
AG.A.7589
catalog number
A.7589
accession number
198812
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1944
ID Number
AG.A.7601
accession number
198812
catalog number
A.7601
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1945
ID Number
AG.A.7555
catalog number
A.7555
accession number
198812
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1943-03-13
ID Number
AG.A.7596
accession number
198812
catalog number
A.7596
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1943-02-12
ID Number
AG.A.7553
accession number
198812
catalog number
A.7553
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1944-10-17
ID Number
AG.A.7588
accession number
198812
catalog number
A.7588
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1945
ID Number
AG.A.7602
catalog number
A.7602
accession number
198812
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1943-07-15
ID Number
AG.A.7586
accession number
198812
catalog number
A.7586

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