310 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM tol. 90 



complete. In some instances it cannot now be determined whether 

 the specimens recorded from this source were vertebrate or inverte- 

 brate fossils. 



In 1856, Dr. Hayden accompanied Lt. Gouverneur K. Warren's ex- 

 pedition for the exploration of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers. It 

 was on this journey that the first vertebrate materials were collected 

 from the Judith River formation. These vertebrates were described 

 and illustrated by Leidy under the title "Extinct Vertebrata from 

 the Judith River and Great Lignite Formations of Nebraska".* A 

 few of these specimens {Thespesius occidentals^ Ischyrotherium anti- 

 quum, Compsemys vie f us, and Trioiiyx foveatus) were deposited in 

 the National Museum, but for some reason now unknown the others 

 were retained in the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. 



In the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1856 men- 

 tion is made that Dr. Hayden revisited the Mauvaises Terres of the 

 White River and "procured some forms of fossil mammals not pre- 

 viously discovered." In 1857 the Museum received two boxes of 

 fossils collected by Dr. Hayden while acting as geologist for Lt. 

 *G. K. Warren's exploring expedition in the Niobrara Valley. Many of 

 these specimens were later described by Dr. Jose])h Leidy ^ and are 

 now in the Museum's collections. 



In 1858, Lieutenant Warren deposited 21 boxes containing collec- 

 tions of animals, plants, minerals, and fossils from the valley of the 

 Platte, gathered chiefly by Dr. Hayden, but the records do not dis- 

 close whether vertebrates were included in this accession. 



In 1870, Hayden collected some vertebrates along the Big and 

 Little Sandy Creeks to Green River and from the Bridger formation 

 in southwestern Wyoming. Cope and Leidy reported on these col- 

 lections, all of which were finally transferred to the National Museum. 

 So much of these materials was fragmentaiy that many of the speci- 

 mens have subsequently been discarded as valueless. 



The bulk of the collections of the National Institute were trans- 

 ferred to the Smithsonian Institution in 1858. The National Insti- 

 tute, known first as the National Institution, contained the earlier 

 collections of the Columbian Institution for the Promotion of Arts 

 and Sciences transferred to it in 1841. For a time it had custody 

 of the governmental collections, assembled and exhibited in a large hall 

 in the Old Patent Office Building, from which they were transferred 

 to the Smithsonian Institution in 1858 and 1862, in accordance with 

 the congressional act of 1846. No list of the vertebrate fossils that 

 •were transferred lias been found in the archives of the National 



* Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc, vol. 11, pp. l.".0-l.-)4, 1860. 

 "* Leidy, J„ :Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelpbia, 1858. 



