84 THE NAUTILUS. 



made by the late Wm. Doherty in the Malay Islands, Burmah and 

 Indo-China, and a very full set of Garrett's Polynesian species. 

 The Unionidae were sold lo Mr. Frierson ; with that exception the 

 collection is intact. It contains a good many types of species de- 

 scribed by Mr. Aldrich and others. The series of operculate land 

 shells is especially rich. All the known terrestrial species of Ala- 

 bama are represented. 



The Museum, an outcome of the Geological Survey, is by law an 

 integral part of the University of Alabama, near Tuscaloosa. Prac- 

 tically it is the State Museum of Natural History, with a general 

 scope, but giving special attention to the geology, fauna and flora of 

 the State. Its set of Alabama fresh-water and land shells, including 

 the Showalter collection, was already extensive and growing rap- 

 idly. Mr. Aldrich has been a generous friend of the institution ; 

 three years ago he gave to it all his duplicate shells, and the very 

 rich collections of tertiary invertebrate fossils are largely due to him. 



MR. HERBERT H. SMITH, Curator of the Museum of the Alabama 

 Geological Survey, has recently brought back from the Coosa River 

 the largest and finest collection of fresh-water shells ever made by 

 him. There are about 25,000 selected specimens, including a very 

 large number of species, some of them new to science. The princi- 

 pal locality worked was Weduska Shoals, between Shelby and Coosa 

 Counties, believed to be the richest place on this very productive 

 river. The Shoals will soon be covered with 20 feet of water by the 

 great dam of the Alabama Power Company, now nearly completed. 

 Mr. Smith's expedition was planned in order to obtain large series 

 of the shells while they are still accessible. In all probability some 

 of the Weduska species will not be found elsewhere ; many Coosa 

 mollusca are extremely local, even restricted to a small part of one 

 shoal. These Weduska species, if not collected now, would have 

 been forever lost to science ; in fact, they are likely to become ex- 

 tinct under the changed conditions. Special efforts were made to 

 secure a full set of the animals of Pleuroceratidce for anatomical pur- 

 poses, and about 5,000 of these were preserved. 



MRS. M. BURTON WILLIAMSON, who spent the summer abroad, 

 visited the conchological museums of New York, Philadelphia and 

 Washington on her way to the west coast. 



