102 EEPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1919. 



Additions to the Tertiary collections include a large shipment of 

 fossils fi'om Panama, presented by Dr. D. F. MacDonald, Houston, 

 Texas; about 500 specimens received in exchange from Dr. \F. C. 

 Clark, Los Angeles, California; and a collection from St. Paul 

 Island, Alaska, obtained by Mr. G. Dallas Hanna and transferred by 

 the Bureau of Fisheries. 



Other accessions worthy of note comprise eight masses of limestone 

 penetrated by the boring shell Pholas^ especially selected for exhibition 

 and donated by Dr. F. C. Clark, Los Angeles, California ; and a col- 

 lection of Cretaceous and Tertiary fossils from England, gift of Col. 

 L. Worthington Wilmer, Eyde, Isle of Wight. The latter forms a 

 valuable addition to the foreign stratigraphic series, to which Colonel 

 Wilmer has contributed so generously in the past. 



Vertebrate paleontology. — Excellent exhibition specimens, hitherto 

 unrepresented by adequate material, were acquired during the year. 

 These include part of a skeleton, with the skull, of Diplocaulus copei^ 

 a curious amphibian from the Permian of Texas; a skull of Mono- 

 clonius; a skull, partial skeleton, and two hind paddles of Tylosauinis, 

 and an articulated series of caudal vertebrae of Platycarpus. 



Next in importance, and forming a valuable addition to our series 

 of types, are 24 described specimens from the Pleistocene and Mio- 

 cene deposits, received from the geological department of the State 

 of Florida as an exchange. 



A considerable portion of the skeleton of a large mastodon, with 

 which was associated the top portion of a human cranium, was do- 

 nated by Mr. Frank L. Clark, Winona Lake, Indiana ; the skull, lower 

 jaws, vertebrae, and ribs of a fossil porpoise from cliffs along Chesa- 

 peake Bay, Maryland, were obtained by Messrs. Norman Boss and 

 William Palmer of the Museum staff ; a complete set of casts of the 

 type skeleton of the giant fossil bird Diatryma steinii, was presented 

 by the American Museum of Natural History, and an enlarged pho- 

 tograph of the skeletal restoration of the large dinosaur Diplodocus 

 carnegii by the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 



Paleohotany. — The fossil plants included in the collection donated 

 by Mr. Alva Shaeffer, noted earlier in this report, constitute the 

 most important accession received in this section. These plants were 

 derived from the coal measures of Indiana and are a valuable addi- 

 tion to the stratigraphic series. 



Work on the collectioTis, special researches^ etc. — Throughout the en- 

 tire year, until after the middle of April, 1919, the exhibition halls 

 of the department were closed to the public and the exhibition collec- 

 tions made wholly inaccessible by giving over the building to the 

 use of the War Risk Bureau. When again they became available 

 at the date mentioned, the first objective was their restoration to their 



