30 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1956 



plans for its future disposition. In November 1955 he made a selection 

 of minerals at Easthampton, Mass., for the Roebling collection and 

 also conferred with the staff of the department of mineralogy of 

 Harvard University. 



In the interest of enhancing the usefulness of the national collection 

 of meteorites, E. P. Henderson, associate curator of mineralogy and 

 petrology, and F. E. Holden, physical science aide, were engaged from 

 September 6 to October 8, 1955, in inspecting the collections of the 

 Institute of Meteorites at the University of New Mexico, the museum 

 at Meteor Crater, Ariz., the Meteorite Museum at Sedona, Ariz., the 

 Museum at Fort Hayes, Kans., and Texas Christian University at 

 Fort Worth, Tex. Private collections owned by A. R. Allen, Trinidad, 

 Colo., H. O. Stockwell, Hutchinson, Kans., and Oscar Monnig, Fort 

 Worth, Tex., were also studied. Data and photographs of meteorites 

 for research and reference purposes not otherwise available were ob- 

 tained by these visits. Five meteorites were presented for the national 

 collections by H. O. Stockwell, two unrepresented iron meteorites by 

 Oscar Monnig, and one large iron meteorite by H. H. Nininger. 



Prospecting in the field for suitable fish and amphibian fossils for 

 inclusion in the planned Hall of Lower Vertebrates was conducted by 

 Dr. David H. Dunkle, associate curator of vertebrate paleontology, 

 and G. D. Guadagni, preparator, during the summer of 1955. While 

 en route to Kansas, arrangements were made at the Carnegie Museum, 

 Pittsburgh, for the transfer on an exchange basis of specimens of 

 European Mesozoic holostean fishes and of late Cretaceous and Eocene 

 teleosts. In northwestern Ohio a worthwhile collection of disasso- 

 ciated fish bones was obtained at the level of contact between the 

 middle Devonian Praut limestone and the base of the black upper 

 Devonian Ohio shales formation. Through the cooperation of George 

 F. Sternberg, curator of the Museum at Fort Hays State College, 

 arrangements had been made for a camping site on the R. W. Haver- 

 field ranch in southwestern Gove County. From the upper Cretaceous 

 Niobrara chalk formation in badlands locally known as Hell's Bar 

 and later in other exposures on one of the Ben Christie ranches such 

 typical fishes as Cimolichthys, Portheus, Syllaemus, Enchodus, Pro- 

 tosphyraena, Gillicus, and Kansanius were excavated. One of the 

 most unusual recoveries were entire schools of the small acanthop- 

 terygian fish Kansanius, found preserved on the insides of giant shells 

 of the clam Inoceranus. 



In continuation of the search for exhibition specimens, Dr. Dunkle, 

 accompanied by Franklin L. Pearce, in charge of the divisional pre- 

 paratory staff, proceeded on October 27, 1955, to Norman, Okla., 

 where advice was received from Dr. Carl Branson, of the Oklahoma 

 Geological Survey and School of Geology, and Dr. Stephen Borhegyi, 



