Questions Asked Of The Smithsonian Telephone Information Servic
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- ``There's a mastodon in my back yard.''
        That's what the woman said when she telephoned the Smithsonian
 Institution, wondering if scientists could excavate the ice age
 creature.
        Then there are the folks who called asking if the Great Wall of
 China was on exhibit, or how about the ``original Bible.'' You
 know, 10 Commandments. Tablets. Moses. A mountain.
        Some of the hundreds of calls the Smithsonian fields each day
 involve age-old questions -- what's the name of the man who invented
 the wheel? Or space-age queries -- where can they see flying saucers
 on display?
        ``They just assume that everything's here and that we can answer
 every question,'' says Cordelia Benedict, who has supervised the
 Smithsonian's telephone information services for nearly a decade.
 ``We treat every call respectfully. People don't like to be laughed


 at.''
        Besides, even Encyclopedia Britannica researchers have called
 (asking about the history of the razor blade) and those ingenious
 questioners from ``Jeopardy'' often burn up the lines seeking game
 show material.
        Benedict and three dozen volunteers answer mostly mundane
 questions: How do you get to the Smithsonian's museums in
 Washington? When are they open? And does the Metro pass by? The
 most detailed questions often get shuttled to other departments
 such as anthropology.
        ``We don't want to make people look stupid, but some of these
 questions are off the wall,'' says Marilyn London, head of the
 anthropology outreach and public information office. ``But no
 question is a bad question.''
        And London usually has an answer, or knows who does.
        ``I think we told the guy who wanted to know who invented the
 wheel that there was no way of telling,'' she says. ``But my
 response would have been, how do you know it was a man?''
        Here are some samples of curious queries and comments:
        --Can a small plane land on the Mall? The caller was sure it
 could since ``all those planes in the Air and Space Museum had to
 get there somehow.''
        --Is Fawn Hall's underwear on display? This from ``two men in a
 Texas bar who obviously had a lot to drink,'' says Benedict. ``We
 get a lot of calls from people wanting us to settle bets.'' (No,
 Oliver North's secretary didn't donate her dainties, nor hide
 documents in them as some claimed.)
        --Where is the Ark of the Covenant? (Try Indiana Jones movies.)
        --Does the Smithsonian display Civil War planes? (The Wright
 brothers didn't pioneer aviation until 1903.)
        --Is the Smithsonian interested in buying the carcass of Bigfoot?
        --Will the Smithsonian sell the starship Enterprise, used for the
 popular ``Star Trek'' television show? ``She only wanted it if the
 transporter was in working condition,'' Benedict says. (The only
 life-size Enterprise at the Smithsonian is the non-flying space
 shuttle of the same name).
        --Can the Smithsonian set up a caller with a hula teacher?
 ``Actually, I tracked one down for her,'' remembers London. ``We
 have a curator involved in South Pacific and Hawaiian culture, so
 she knew one.''
        --How do you say ``I'm thinking of you'' in Apache?
        --Can you send ``all the information you have on human evolution,
 even the secret stuff?'' from a grade school letter writer.
        --How about the coin George Washington tossed across the Delaware
 River? The price: $77 million. The question: Did he really toss
 that coin?
        --Could the Smithsonian take a ``petrified whale'' off a caller's
 hands? He was referred to paleontology. ``I told him that means
 `very old biology,' and he said, `good because this is a very old
 whale,''' Benedict recalls.
        --And one of Benedict's favorites: an offer to donate a
 collection of potato chips resembling ``famous people and
 animals.''
        Benedict keeps the gems of the day -- about three or four out of
 every 650 calls made to her department -- in a battered green folder
 that ``just gets thicker and thicker.''
        The Smithsonian might issue a book with 150 of the most
 interesting queries to mark the museum's 150th year anniversary in
 1996, says Benedict, who hopes to title it, ``There's a Mastodon in
 My Back Yard.''
        Hey, what about that elephant-like mastodon?
        ``There was literally a mastodon buried on her ranch,'' Benedict
 says. ``She was right. We referred her to the vertebrate
 department, I think.''
        ------
        Smithsonian telephone information services: (202) 357-2700.


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