REPOET OF NATIONAL MUSEUM^ 1915. 63 



paleontological department of the University of Chicago; Prof. 

 Gilbert Van Ingen, of Princeton University, and graduate students 

 of several universities. 



Vertebrate paleontology. — To Mr. John B. Henderson the Museum 

 is greatly indebted for meeting the expense of the final collecting 

 from the cave deposit at Cumberland, Md., described in previous 

 reports. The specimens obtained, recorded as a gift from Mr. Hen- 

 derson, comprise 15 more or less complete skulls and other frag- 

 mental material. Portions of a mastodon from Winamac, Ind., pre- 

 sented by Mr. W. D. Pattison of that place, are excej)tionally inter- 

 esting as Mr. Pattison has given permission to unearth the remaining 

 parts, which, it is expected, will enable the Museum to make a prac- 

 tically complete mount, for exhibition, of a very large specimen. A 

 third important contribution, from Dr. G. E. Wieland, of the Pea- 

 body Museum of Yale University, consists of 30 dinosaurian skin 

 plates from the Lance formation of Wyoming, being the largest 

 series of dermal ossifications known from that formation. A num- 

 ber of the si)ecimens have been figured by Dr. Wieland. 



A composite skeleton of a dog, and three skulls and lower jaws, 

 from the La Brea asphalt deposits of California, were received in ex- 

 change from the University of California. Two purchases of note- 

 worthy material were made. One consisted of vertebrae, skull, lower 

 jaws, and portions of the paddles of the extinct swimming reptile 

 Mosasauru^^ from the Bearpaw formation of Montana ; the other of 

 the upxDer part of the skull of a rare fossil sirenian from Oregon. 



The routine work, other than that of the preparators, consisted 

 largely in systematically arranging and classifying specimens, as 

 they are made read}'^, in the new steel cases, and while this labor has 

 not yet been brought down to date the collection is now in much 

 better condition than ever before. In the matter of cleaning up the 

 remaining material of the Marsh collection, Mr. Gilmore reports the 

 completion of the preparation of all ceratopsian material from the 

 Upper Cretaceous formations of Wyoming, comprising several skulls 

 and other skeletal remains, including a fairly complete skull of 

 Triceratops ohtusus Marsh, and portions of the skeleton of Tricera- 

 tops calicornis Marsh. The skull of Triceratops ohtusus was restored 

 and mounted. The mammalian material prepared, according to Mr. 

 Gidley, consisted chiefly of skulls or jaws of Titanotheres. In all, 

 the contents of 57 boxes from the Marsh collection were disposed of. 

 Unfortunately, in the attempt at an early reduction in the large 

 number of boxes, necessitated by lack of storage space, the materials 

 most easily cleaned were the first to receive attention, and the work 

 now proceeds much more slowly owing to the extreme hardness of 

 the matrix in which most of the bones are embedded, and the frag- 

 mental character of the latter. 



