I ( 'I UMBIAN MUSEI M R] POR I S, V< 'I . I. 



be reconstructed. From the osteological material of the Ancon 

 exploration it is possible to make a full and complete investigation of 

 the physical characteristics, so far as the skeleton is concerned, of 

 the ancient inhabitants of this Necropolis. The most important 

 Herbarium accessions to the Botanical Department this year, are the 

 plants of the Gaumer collection purchased by the Museum, and the 

 Mexican plants donated by Mr. Ryerson. The former are particularly 

 valuable, as they maintain this special field for the Museum, and 

 yield a large percentage of species entirely new to science. Mrs. 

 Snyder has continued her enthusiastic interest in the welfare of this 

 Department during the past year by additional contributions of 

 plants collected by herself in the Californian region. Mr. Nuttall, 

 of West Virginia, who co-operated with the Botanical Department in 

 the preparation of its publication on the Flora of West Virginia, has 

 exhibited his interest in the work of the Museum by sendi 

 specimens illustrating the flora of that state. Special significance 

 should also be attached to the valuable material collected by the 

 Curator as a beginning of the contemplated North American Forestry 

 Collection. In this work a good start has been made, and much 

 work outlined for the next collecting season. The Department 

 of Geology has obtained a large collection of fossils illustrating 

 the fauna of the Chicago beds during the Niagara period. This 

 includes over five hundred specimens representing at least one 

 hundred distinct species, many of them rare, and two as yet unde- 

 scribed. These were gathered during a series of years by the late 

 Dr. Kennicott, and include many of the best specimens so far 

 obtained from the Bridgeport and Hawthorne localities. Oth> r 

 important accessions to the paleontological collection are a series of 

 about sixty species of tertiary leaves from the Denver beds of South 

 Table Mountain and Golden, Colorado: twenty species of Devonian 

 plants from the Fern Ledges of St. John, N. B. : one hundred speci- 

 mens of the Cretaceous fossils of Texas representing twenty distinct 

 species: and a Placenticeras from Montana, nearly two feet in diam- 

 eter, with sutures beautifully preserved. A relief map of France, 

 four feet in diameter, a relief map ol Northwestern Illinois and a 

 of seven relief maps of the continents and the world, are 

 important additions to the geographic material already exhibited. 

 To the mineral collection have been added a number of the rarer 

 minerals of Mexico, such as Guanajuatite. Livingstonite, Bustanite, 

 etc., obtained by exchange with the Mexican National School of 

 Engineering, and some showy specimens of the better known minerals 

 collected by the Curator of Geology. A series of remarkable Joplin, 



