20 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1940 



Nearly 600 marine invertebrates from southeast Greenland came as 

 a result of the Bartlett Greenland Expedition of 1939. In addition, 

 there were received important collections of isopods, amphipods, 

 sponges, pycnogonids, and worms, many representing new species or 

 species new to the Museum collections. Mollusks came chiefly from 

 Cuba, Hawaii, Jamaica, Samoa, Guam, Colombia, Ecuador, and the 

 United States. Accessions of helminths included type material of 

 much interest. Among the echinoderms was a fine series of starfishes, 

 sea urchins, brittlestars, and holothurians from Antarctica, as well as 

 noteworthy specunens from the Indo-Pacific. 



About 23,600 plants, largely American, were received for inclusion 

 ill the National Herbarium, the largest lot being 5,200 specimens from 

 Virginia, West Virginia, and Maine presented by H. A. Allard, of 

 the United States Bureau of Plant Industry. 



Geology. — Several additions to the mineralogical and petrological 

 series were made possible by the Canfield, Roebling, and Chamberlam 

 funds of the Smithsonian Institution. Among these were a flawless, 

 pale blue, aquamarine crystal weighing 347 grams ; a 128-carat emerald 

 crystal from Bahia, Brazil; and 495 Mexican minerals, including 

 rare arsenates and associated minerals and fine apatite crystals from 

 Durango. These latter were collected by Curator W. F. Foshag on 

 a trip to Mexico in 1939. About 3,000 mineral, ore, and rock specimens 

 were transferred from the United States Military Academy. Forty- 

 one individual specimens were contained in 21 accessions of meteorites 

 received, 30 of these representing falls new to the collections. 



The largest accession in the field of stratigraphic paleontology com- 

 prised the Paleozoic fossils collected by Assistant Curator G. A. 

 Cooper and Dr. Josiah Bridge during their 1939 field work. Next in 

 point of size is the celebrated old English Calvert collection of fossils 

 procured by Martin L. Ehrmann. In addition, the biologic study col- 

 lections were materially augmented with many fossil echinoderms, 

 conodonts, Foraminifera, bryozoans, brachiopods, and mollusks 

 received from generous donors. The most important exhibition 

 specimen of the year was a 3- by 7-foot slab of Miocene standstone, 

 discovered by Dr. Foshag at Scientists Cliff, Md., on which a rare 

 species of echinoid covered the surface. 



From a scientific standpoint, the most noteworthy accession in 

 the division of vertebrate paleontology was an exchange from the 

 Peabody Museum of Natural History of 25 original type specimens 

 of fossil lizards, making the National Museum collection of these 

 saurians the largest assemblage of its kind in this country. Field 

 expeditions yielded four articulated lizard skeletons, two partial 

 ceratopsian skulls from the North Horn fonnation, and a consid- 

 erable number of fragmentary jaws and teeth from the Paleocene 



