312 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



The departmeut coiitaiiis also many single si)ecimens of great value, 

 which have been made the basis of new families and genera. 



Regarding the Department of Mollusks, Mr. William H. Dall, the 

 honorary curator, writes as follows: 



The collection of mollusks was founded primarily upon the specimeus gathered by 

 the United States Exploring Expedition under Wilkes during 1838-1842, which 

 formed the types of the folio volume on the mollusks and shells by Dr. A. A. Gould, 

 included in the series of United. States Exploring Expedition reports published by 

 Congress. To these were added the types of the mollusks of the North Pacific Explor- 

 ing Expedition under Ringgold and Rodgers, collected by Dr. William Stimpson, 

 and described by Gould. The collections were very rich and valuable, for the time, 

 but underwent serious vicissitudes before and after being received by the Smith- 

 sonian Institution previoiis to the organization of the Museum, so that the series as 

 it now exists is by no means complete. Nevertheless these shells form an interest- 

 ing and important portion of the collection. 



Next in point of number and value comes the collection, especially of Unionidie, 

 given by Dr. Isaac Lea, and subsequently enriched by his son-in-law and daughter, 

 the Rev. and Mrs. L. T. Chamberlain. This collection is, in its specialties, the fresh- 

 water mussels of the world, unrivaled for extent and value, comprising an enormous 

 number of types and having full data in relation to tlie habitat, etc., in nearly every 

 case. 



Almost as important for the mollusks of Great Britain, Northern Europe, the Med- 

 iterranean, and especially for the various deep-sea dredging expeditions sent out 

 under British auspices before the Challenger expedition, is the Jeffreys collection, 

 purchased from Dr. J. Gwyn .Jeffreys, and comprising the results of nearly half a 

 century of active collecting, exchanging, and purchase — in all some 25,000 lots of 

 specimens, by far the most important and complete series of British shells in exist- 

 ence, and forming the basis of some hundred publications. 



The fauna of West America, both littoral and deep-sea mollusks, is represented by 

 the combined collections of Robert E. C. Stearns, William 11. Dall, the United States 

 steamer Albatross of the Fish Commission, the Arctic cruisers of the United States 

 revenue marine, and many private donations, in all comprising the most complete 

 existing representation of the fauna, with full data in nearly every case. 



The fauna of the east coast of North America is represented by the unrivaled col- 

 lections of the United States Fish Commission, augumeuted by a series of those of 

 the Blake and many private collectors in the West Indies and on our Southern coast. 



The land and fresh-water shells oi' North America, apart from the fresh-water 

 mussels, are represented by the best existing collection derived from many sources, 

 including types of Binney and Bland, Lea, Lewis, Dall, Stimpson, and many others. 



To sum up, the collection of mollusks has the best series in the world, sui)plied 

 with the fullest data, in the modern sense, of the land, fresh- water, shore, and deep- 

 sea mollusks of North America, the Arctic regions, the North Atlantic and Pacific, 

 and the British Islands. In the total number of specimens, the collection is the 

 largest in the world, including over six hundred thousand specimens of dry shells 

 and five thousand jars af alcoholic niolluscan material. The collection of Cenozoic 

 fossil shells comprises the largest existing series of the Tertiary fauna of the United 

 States, and probably the largest series of Antillean Tertiary shells in any museum, 

 though much remains to be done in naming and classifying the fossil material. 



It may be said without fear of contradiction that for the regions mentioned the 

 Department of Mollusks is unrivaled, not only in the amount and variety of material 

 it contains, but especially in the full and correct data recorded in respect to the 

 specimens, and which give to them a really s<ientific value, which is wanting in 

 most of the great collections of the world, which were mostly made at a period when 

 the importance of such data was not fully recognized. No other collection contains 



