2 BULLETIN 65, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



The greater part of the luaiuiscript consists of copies of the descriptions, 

 and translations of those in other than the Eni;ilish language, of all foreign 

 species of graptolites together with a full bibliography of all species described 

 up to 1896. It is obvious that it was the author's intention to produce a 

 monograph of all the graptolites of the world. 



Another juirt of the manuscript contains the history and synonymy of the 

 American species. In this work Doctor Gurley had evidently made spe<Mal 

 efforts to trace the history of many of the cryptic names of the earlier geolo- 

 gists, as those of the graptolites mentioned in the reports of the first geological 

 survey of New York by Emmons and others. These notes are fairly complete; 

 they have been used here as far as the scope of our work allowed, and due 

 credit given the author. 



In the description of the North American graptolites Gurley had not pro- 

 ceeded beyond the Dendroidea and a part of the Graptoloidea of the Lower 

 Chami»lainic. The former consist in the large majority of the Niagaran forms 

 from Hauulton, Canada, which lie without our field, and the descriptions of 

 the latter faunas are entirely based upon Canadian material. 



In another paragraph Doctor Ruedeniann has the follow ing to 

 say regarding Doctor Gurley's monograph : 



On the whole, it may be fairly said that Doctor Gurley has printed in his 

 preliminary publication in the Journal of Geology all that was new or espe- 

 cially worthy of publication, namely, the descriptions of all new species — 

 with the exception of a few Dendroidea — and his observations on the mor- 

 phology of certain hitherto incompletely known species (e. g., Clathrograi)tus 

 geinitzianus). Still there was enough left in the manuscript to make it a 

 welcome help to the writer in many ways. Its extensive bibliography of the 

 graptolites, which is practically complete to 1S96, might be published as a 

 separate bulletin, as also eventually the Dendroidea. This done, full justice, 

 I believe, would have been rendered to Doctor (Jurley's assiduous labors on 

 the graptolites. 



From time to time attempts have heen made to arrange the Gurley 

 manuscript so that portions of it at least could be prepared for pub- 

 lication, but it finalW became apparent that the dendroid forms from 

 Hamilton, Ontario, were all that could be said to be available for 

 this purpose, without a complete restudy and redescription of the 

 forms. At the request of the secretary of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion I have arranged the present article, using Doctor Gurley's de- 

 scriptions and drawings as a basis, but in order to illustrate the 

 fauna jjroiierl}^ additional photographs were necessary. As these are 

 my own work, it woidd be unfair to attribute an}' mistakes in them 

 to Doctor Gurley, and they have, therefore, been designated accord- 

 ingh' on the descriptions of the plates. For the same reason, it may 

 be noted that the identification and arrangement of the drawings, 

 the descriptions of the text figures and plates, and other matters, 

 exclusive of the descriptions of species and notes accredited to Doctor 

 Gurley, have been introduced by me. 



While the j)resent work has been in part that of compilation, yet 

 it is only fair to say that in order to do the subject justice, a restudy 



