314 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



The most beautiful, and in many respects tlie most important, of 

 the numerous series in the Department of Marine Invertebrates is the 

 collection of corals made by the United States Exploring Expedition, 

 and described by Dana. It includes many types of new forms. The 

 great deep-sea collections from the North Atlantic and North Pacific, 

 made by the United States Fish Commission, deserve notice; as do 

 also the exhaustive collections from the New England Coast and the 

 Fishing Banks, and from the west coast of Alaska, received from the 

 same source. All the collections are very rich in the types of new 

 species and higher groups. 



Among the notable specimens in the Department of Comparative 

 Anatomy should be mentioned the skulls and partial skeletons of the 

 great extinct Arctic Seacow (Rytina); several skeletons of huge Gala- 

 pagos Tortoises ; and an unrivaled series of bones of the Great Auk. 

 The collection is rich in skulls and skeletons of the various species of 

 porpoises. 



In the Department of Geology the following series and separate 

 objects are pointed out by Dr. George P. Merrill as deserving special 

 mention: 



1. The Leadville, Colo., collections of rocks and ores, comprising some 380 speci- 

 mens, illustrating the work of S. F. Emmons and AVhitman Cross.' 



2. The Washoe collections, comprising 198 specimens, as selected and studied by- 

 George F. Becker.' 



3. The collections of the Fortieth Parallel Survey. These comprise some 3,000 

 specimens of eruptive and sedimentary rocks collected by members of the Fortieth 

 Parallel Survey, under the direction of Clarence King, in 1867-1873. The eruptive 

 rocks of the series vy^ere described by Prof. Ferdinand Zirkel.-' 



4. The Hawes collections. These comprise some 350 specimens of eruptive 

 altered rocks, representing in part the work done by Dr. Hawes in connection 

 with the New Hampshire surveys.^ It also includes the small fragments described 

 in his paper'' on the Albany granites and their contact phenomena. 



5. The Pacific Slope quicksilver collections. These comprise several hundred 

 small specimens (mostly 4 by 6 cm.) of rocks and ores from the quicksilver regions 

 of the locality above noted, as collected and described by G. F. Becker" and col- 

 leagues in "Geology of the Quicksilver Deposits of the Pacific Slope." 



6. Pigeon Point collections. These comprise 400 specimens illustrating various 

 contact phenomena, as occurring at Pigeon Point, on the north shore of Lake Superior, 

 and as described by Prof. W. S. Bailey in a bulletin' of the United States Geological 

 Survey. 



'Emmons, Samuel Franklin. "Geology and Mining Industry of Leadville, Colo., 

 with atlas." Monograph xii of the United States Geological Survey, 1886. 



2 " Geology of the Comstock Lode and the Washoe District, with atlas." Mono- 

 graph III of the United States Geological Survey, 1882. 



3 "Microscopic Petrography," United States Geological Explorations of the For- 

 tieth Parallel, Vol. VI, 1876. 



■•"The Geology of New Hampshire," Concord, 1878, Vol. Ill, part iv. 



6 American Journal of Science, 1881, Vol. XXI, pages 21-32. 



6 Monograph xiii of the United States Geological Survey, 1886. 



' "The Empire and Sedimentary Rocks on Pigeon Point, Minnesota, and their Con- 

 tact Phenomena," 1893. Bulletin No. 109. 



