42 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1906. 
Alabama; and a collection of yellow water lilies, assembled by Mr. G. S. 
Miller, jr., was made the subject of investigations by Mr. Painter, 
aid in the division. Prof. E. L. Morris, of the Washington Central 
High School, continued his studies on the genus P/lantago, and the 
botanists of the Department of Agriculture made constant use of the 
Herbarium. 
Four meteorites from Modoc, Kansas; Coon Butte, Arizona; Hender- 
sonville, North Carolina, and Selma, Alabama, were the subject of 
study by Prof. George P. Merrill, head curator of geology, who com- 
pleted descriptions of the two first mentioned. A contribution to the 
History of American Geology, on which he had been engaged for 
several years, was published in April as an appendix to the Annual 
Report of the Museum for 1904. Mr. Wirt Tassin, assistant curator 
of mineralogy, conducted investigations on meteorites in the collection 
with special reference to establishing the relations between structure 
and composition, which resulted in the discovery of a graphitic iron 
not heretofore recognized as occurring in meteorites, and in confirming 
the conclusion that much of the so-called chromite of meteorites is not 
true chromite but rather a spinel. Forty-two analyses led to the 
recognition of four minerals new to the collection. 
Dr. R. S. Bassler, assistant curator of stratigraphic paleontology, 
completed under the auspices of the U. S. Geological Survey, a paper 
on the stratigraphy of the Valley of Virginia, with especial reference 
to the cement resources of the region, and a monograph on the bryo- 
zoan fauna of the Rochester shales. He has begun upon a study of 
the Ordovician bryozoans of Russia. 
Mr. Gidley, of the section of vertebrate paleontology, made a study 
of tooth-cusp development in Mesozoic mammals, described a new 
species of fossil raccoon and a new genus and species of musk-ox, 
and finished his work on Miocene horses, begun at the American 
Museum of Natural History. He has now in preparation a revision 
of the Mesozoic mammals, based primarily upon the Museum collec- 
tion. Mr. Gilmore, of the same section, described a recently mounted 
skeleton of the oreodont, Menycoidodon gracilis, and commenced the 
writing of a new description of the type specimens of J/orosaurus 
agilis Marsh. He was also the author of several other papers relating 
to the collection of fossil reptiles. Both Mr. Gilmore and Mr. Gidley 
spent much time in revising the manuscript of a type catalog of the 
fossil vertebrates in the collection of the Museum, which will soon be 
ready for printing. 
Extensive researches in paleobotany were carried on by Mr. David 
White and Dr. F. H. Knowlton, of the U. S. Geological Survey, who 
are also in charge of the Museum collection of fossil plants. 
