260 REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



lated during the coming year, in connection with the work of revision 

 now in progress. Materials have been received so rapidly and in such 

 large quantities that the work of sorting, properly preserving and cat- 

 aloguing specimens has occupied nearly the entire time of the small 

 force assigned to this department. This large amount of routine work 

 has greatly interfered with scientific research and the preparation of 

 such reports upon biological subjects as are naturally expected from a 

 department of this character. It is expected, however, that in the course 

 of a few months the arrangement of the collections will be so perfected 

 that the sorting and cataloguing of new materials will occupy much less 

 time comparatively than in the past. 



The lack of sufficient and suitably arranged space for handling and 

 storing the alcoholic collections has been the main cause of much of 

 our trouble and delay. At present, our only work room for alcoholics 

 is a small laboratory in the west basement of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, and nearly all the collections have to be stored in a dark passage- 

 way, where they are difficult of access and much crowded. For con- 

 venience in revising the collections, the west exhibition hall of the 

 Smithsonian Institution has been temporarily closed to the public, and 

 is being used for that purpose. As soon as that work has been com- 

 pleted, and the pottery removed from the cases on the west side of the 

 hall, those cases will be refitted and devoted to dried collections of 

 marine invertebrates, which have been already prepared for exhibition. 



DEPARTMENT OF FOSSIL INVERTEBRATES (MESOZOIC AND CENOZOIC 



SECTIONS). 



C. A. White, Honorary Curator. 



The fact that myself and my assistants are regularly employed upon 

 the United States Geological Survey has largely prevented the accom- 

 plishment of much Museum work proper, but the necessary routine work 

 of my division has been attended to. 



Important accessions. 



Early last summer Dr. Orville A. Derby presented to the Museum an 

 important collection of invertebrate fossils from Brazil. Some of them 

 are Carboniferous, a few are Devonian, but the most of them are dupli- 

 cates of a considerable part of the Cretaceous species which I have 

 prepared for publication under the auspices of the Brazilian National 

 Museum. 



Mr. George Stolly, of Austin, Tex., has, during the year, sent fifty- 

 nine boxes of fossils from Texas to the Museum, only a part of which 

 have been opened. 



Of the collections that have been received through the United States 

 Geological Survey, much the most important are those which have been 

 sent from the Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks of the Gulf States by Mr. 



