SECRETARY'S REPORT 47 



In collaboration with Dr. R. E. Grant of the U.S. Geological Survey, 

 Dr. Cooper nearly finished a large manuscript on the Permian brachio- 

 pods of the Glass Mountains. 



Dr. Francis Hueber, associate curator of paleobotany, made two 

 trips to Canada this year in connection with his study of fossil plants. 

 On the first trip, in August, he studied sit-es in Lower Devonian sedi- 

 ments along the shore of the Eestigouche River in New Brunswick 

 and type localities for certain species along the north shore of Gaspe 

 Bay in Quebec. Sixteen crates of specimens w^ere forwarded to 

 the museum. His second trip, in May, took him to the Eedpath Mu- 

 seum at ]\IcGill University, Montreal, and to the Geological Survey 

 of Canada, Ottawa, to examine collections. One of his findings during 

 the second trip is that the holotype of Gladoxylon dawsoni, an Upper 

 Devonian plant from New York, is distributed among three separate 

 museum collections. 



Dr. Hueber spent the first week in April in Scotland examining 

 collections of Rhynie Chert offered for sale. This is a classic Middle 

 Devonian plant-bearing material no longer freely available from the 

 type locality in Aberdeenshire. It contains exceptionally well- 

 preserved and nearly intact examples of early land plants, the dis- 

 covery and description of which in 1917-21 revolutionized botanical 

 evolutionary thought. Thus the opportunity to select this material 

 in quantity is quite rare. The lot purchased weighed 1,000 pounds. 



Curator of invertebrat-e paleontology Richard S. Boardman, ac- 

 companied by museum specialist George T. Farmer, made a collecting 

 trip to the Arbuckle Mountains in southern Oklahoma in September 

 and October. The oldest Imown (approximately 480 million years) 

 fossil Bryozoa on the continent occur here in sedimentary rocks 1,500 

 feet thick. Thus, enough time is represented to demonstrate the 

 evolution of early genera and the phylogenetic connections and origin 

 of many of the genera occurring more commonly in younger rocks. 



Dr. Porter Kier, associate curator of invertebrate paleontology, 

 was in Florida at the beginning of the fiscal year and continued there 

 until July 12 studying the living habits of echinoids in the area of 

 the Florida Keys. In company with Dr. Norman Sohl of the U.S. 

 Geological Survey, he used scuba diving equipment to observe species 

 distribution in relation to bottom conditions and depth. In April he 

 transferred these investigations to Dominica as part of the Bredin- 

 Archbold-Smithsonian biological survey of that island. Museum in- 

 vestigations enabled Dr. Kier to complete a major study of the 

 evolutionary trends in Paleozoic echinoids. 



Associate curator of invertebrate paleontology Richard Cifelli com- 

 pleted a paper on planktonic Foraminifera from the western Atlantic 

 and another on concentration techniques of shelled organisms from 

 plankton. 



