1 INTRODUCTION

A PAIR OF CHILDREN'S BOOTS from the Aleutian Islands (NMNH cat. #2129; Fig. 1) was examined and treated while the author was an intern from the Art Conservation Department, State University of New York College at Buffalo. The work was done at the Anthropology Conservation Laboratory of the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), Smithsonian Institution. The boots were collected by the U. S. Naval Exploring Expedition of 1838–1841 led by Lt. Charles Wilkes. They were added to the Smithsonian's collection in 1857 when all of the material collected by Wilkes was transferred from the U. S. Patent Office.

Fig. 1. Boots before treatment.