Hitchcock, A. S (Albert Spear) 1865-1935 Search this
Subject:
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) Search this
Biological Survey of the Panama Canal Zone, 1923-1924 Search this
Physical description:
Color: Black and White; Size: 5w x 3h; Type of Image: Landscape; Medium: Photographic print
Type:
Photographic print
Landscape
Place:
Panama
Gatun Lake (Panama)
Date:
1923-1924
Category:
Historic Images of the Smithsonian
Notes:
The negative number #1104 is Hitchcock's negative number. The original photograph is located in Hitchcock's travel album.
Summary:
View of Barro Colorado Island in Gatun Lake, in the Panama Canal Zone. The image shows a submerged forest surrounding the island. Barro Colorado Island had been a mountaintop but became an island when Gatun Lake was created as the Panama Canal watershed. Tree stumps are still visible around the island today. Barro Colorado Island is now part of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
The image was taken by Albert Spear Hitchcock, botanist with the United States Department of Agriculture and honorary curator of the Smithsonian's United States National Herbarium while on the Biological Survey of the Panama Canal Zone, 1923-1924. Smithsonian staff members were in Panama with the Institute for Research in Tropical America, a group of private foundations and universities under the auspices of the National Research Council, who first established a research laboratory on Barro Colorado Island, Panama Canal Zone, in order to investigate the flora and fauna of tropical America.
Contained within:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 229, Box 19, Folder 2