REPORT OF ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON PALEONTOLOGY 



To the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Institution. 



Gentlemen : Your Advisory Committee on Paleontology would 

 respectfully report as follows : 



The principles upon which research in paleontology should be 

 encouraged appear to be very similar to those in zoology. The 

 problems and methods are different. It is not necessary, for exam- 

 ple, to institute a permanent paleontological station. 



First, it is ver>'^ desirable to encourage certain explorations, espe- 

 ciall}' such as are not provided for by any existing government or 

 state institutions. 



Second, the committee is very strongly of the opinion that a more 

 exact correlation of Eiiropeayi and American horizons, or the estab- 

 lishment of standard bench-marks for the geological time scale, 

 is a matter of first importance as a problem. This is expanded 

 under IV. 



Third, a publication of the same character as the Paleontographica 

 of Germany, or the memoirs of the Paleontological Society, is one 

 of the greatest needs of American paleontology at present, as there 

 are no institutions with funds for the adequate preparation of illus- 

 trations. A number of valuable memoirs have already been offered 

 to the Institution. 



Fotirth, awards or special grants for paleontological research are 

 desirable on the principles carefully considered and hereinafter 

 expressed in sections I and V. 



More in detail our recommendations are as follows : 



I. General principles. — That a comprehensive plan for the encour- 

 agement of paleontological research extending over a number of 

 years should be prepared, and that no special applications should 

 be considered or acted on until certain general principles are estab- 

 lished. Chief among these are (a) that it is desirable to aid exist- 

 ing institutions, not to duplicate their work, either in research or 

 publication, but to strengthen and cooperate ; \b) that diffusion of 

 the advantages of the Institution throughout the existing centers 

 of research will effect better results than centralization. 



II. Advisory committee. — That, as a feature of the permanent plan 

 of the Institution, an advisory committee of five on paleontology 



II (i6i) 



