36 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



invertebrate fauna, lie was enabled to gatlier, both at Eastport and Grand 

 Manan, immense numbers of specimens, which, when fully elaborated, 

 will be distributed to various scientific establishments throughout the 

 world. With the facilities furnished by the Goverument in authorizing the 

 use of the revenue-cutter Mosswood whenever necessary, the party was 

 enabled to carry on these researches in every branch of the inquiry, 

 including dredging and temperature-observations at great depths in the 

 Bay of Fundy. Every facility was heartily rendered in this work by 

 Captain Hodgdon and his officers. For a jiortion of the time a detail of 

 the party, consisting of Professor Webster and idr. C H. Pond, was oc- 

 cupied at Cape Porpoise, south of Portland, as also i'lt the island of 

 Grand Manan. 



By permission of Professor Peii'ce, the Superintendent of the Coast-Sur- 

 vey, Professor Baird also placed a party on board the Coast-Survey steamer 

 Bache while surveying the Georges Banks and other shoals olf the 

 coast of New England ; this detad. consisting for a time of Mr. S. J. 

 Smith, and Mr. Oscar Harger, of Yale College, and afterward of Dr. A. 

 S. Packard, jr., and Mr. Cook, of Salem. 



The additions to our knowledge of the natural history of the Ameri- 

 can seas made by all these parties has been very great, and the results 

 will be published in detail in the report of the commissioner to be made 

 to Congress. 



While engaged at Eastport himself. Professor Baird had a party also at 

 Wood's Hole, the scene of his labors during the year 1S71: and several 

 interesting additions to the known fauna of the Vineyard Sound region 

 were made, among them, two genera and species of the sword-fish 

 family, previously unknown on the coast of the United States ; and other 

 specimens of marine animals, especially of fishes, were contributed by 

 Mr. Samuel Powell, of Newport. 



The following is an account of the work done by Mr. F. B. Meek, who 

 still retains his apartments in the building, and examines and reports 

 to the Institution all specimens of paleontology and geology submitted 

 to it for examination. 



Most of his attention during tlie year 1872 has been devoted to the 

 invertebrate paleontological department of the Ohio State geological 

 survey. The collections have been sent to him at the Smithsonian 

 Institution. He has, from time to time, published preliminary ixjpers on 

 these fossils in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of 

 Philadelphia and the American Journal of Science and Arts, and sub- 

 sequently prepared more elaborate descriptions for the first volume of 

 the Final Eeport of the Ohio Geological Survey, in charge of Dr. J. S. 

 Newberry. He has also had the dravrings, illustrating his part of this 

 volume of the Eeport, and a part of those for the second volume, made 

 in the Institution, under his immediate direction 5 and has likewise ar- 

 ranged the plates and superintended the engraving of the same, so far 

 as completed. 



