SECRETARY'S REPORT 35 



obtained. Perhaps the large areas available for searching account 

 for the fact that a fair number of new species have been turned up 

 from these particular pits. 



In September, Dr. George S. Switzer, curator of mineralogy and 

 petrology, accompanied by Paul E. Desautels, associate curator of 

 that division, collected excellent mineralogical material at the Sower- 

 butt Quarry in the vicinity of Butler, N.J. In August Dr. Switzer 

 visited Norway and Denmark, partly to attend meetings of the Inter- 

 national Geological Congress and the International Mineralogical 

 Association in Copenhagen. Before the meeting Dr. Switzer joined 

 a field excursion to mineral occurrences in southern Norway, visiting 

 the Kongsberg silver mines, the serpentine deposits at Modum, the 

 Skutterud cobalt mine, the granite pegmatites of the Iveland district, 

 the 0degarden phosphate deposits, and the nepheline syenite peg- 

 matites of Langesundfjord. 



In February Edward P. Henderson, associate curator of mineralogy 

 and petrology, accompanied by Dr. Chao of the U.S. Geological Sur- 

 vey and Dr. Cohen of the Mellon Institute of Pittsburgh, visited 

 various localities in Georgia that had produced tektites. Five tektite 

 localities were investigated, and it was found that the formation from 

 which these tektites come are more complex than the local geologists 

 had previously thought. Since the Georgia tektites have been chem- 

 ically dated as being 29 million years old, and this date has been 

 established by two separate investigators, the findings of tektites 

 in different parts of Georgia will make it possible to date accurately 

 some of the widely scattered beds in some sedimentary formations 

 that contain very few fossils. 



Dr. Kichard S. Boardinan, associate curator of invertebrate paleon- 

 tology and paleobotany, during the summer months visited several 

 European museums and universities studying collections and also 

 explored areas for purposes of collecting. During June he collected 

 invertebrate fossils from many of the classic Lower Paleozoic locali- 

 ties in Britain. These localities include many of the faunas used as 

 standards for comparisons for stratigraphic and geologic time inter- 

 vals over the world. During July and parts of August and September 

 he collected in Norway and Sweden. The Island of Gotland produced 

 an even ton of remarkably preserved invertebrate fossils, which will 

 provide an important research collection as well as many specimens 

 of exhibit potential. 



In connection with the Hall of Invertebrate Paleontology then 

 being renovated, Dr. Porter M. Kier, associate curator of invertebrate 

 paleontology and paleobotany, accompanied by Dr. Erie G. Kauffman, 

 assistant curator of that division, explored Scientists' Cliffs, Md., to 

 obtain sediment from the Miocene outcrop to enable them to recon- 

 struct an echinoid-bearing slab for the echinoderm exhibit. They 



