46 REPOET OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1899. 



logue cards, as well as manuscript for 1.319 labels. With the present 

 force, however, it will not be possible to complete the installation of 

 the exhibition series for at least two years. 



In the Section of Paleobotany 1 have to report the installation of 

 an exhibition series comprising some 1,000 specimens in the wall cases 

 occupying the south and west galleries of the Southeast Court. Some 

 1,300 specimens were received and catalogued during the year, and 

 four volumes, comprising 2,000 entries in the old catalogues, have 

 been copied. At least 12,000 entries yet remain to be made of mate- 

 rials now in the Museum. There is need of another assistant in this 

 section. 



RESEARCH. 



But little opportunity has been offered for special investigation by 

 officers of the Museum. Dr. E. C. E. Lord has occupied a desk in the 

 laboratory of the Division of Geology and has been engaged upon the 

 study of the rocks collected by Dr. E. A. Mearns, U. S. A., of the 

 Mexican Boundary Survey and other rocks collected by himself on 

 the coast of Maine and by Messrs. Schuchert and White in Greenland. 



The head curator has partially revised for publication the manuscript 

 for a handbook of the collection of nonmetallic minerals which was 

 begun some three years ago. He has also written sundry other papers, 

 the titles of which, so far as they have yet been published, are given 

 in the Bi])liography (Appendix IV). Mr. Wirt Tassin, assistant curator 

 in charge of the mineral collections, has now in press a handbook of the 

 exhibition series, illustrating the characters of minerals, and also a 

 paper showing the classification adopted in the arrangement of the 

 mineral collections under his charge. He announces having in prepar- 

 ation a catalogue of the mineral collections and a handbook of the 

 collection of meteorites. Mr. Schuchert has been engaged, when 

 opportunity offered, in reworking the Lower Helderberg and Oriskany 

 collections, and has prepared two papers for publication. He has 

 practically completed a paper on the Lower Devonian Aspect of the 

 Lower Helderberg and Oriskany, and one on the Lower Silurian Fauna 

 of Baffin Land. He is also continuing his work, begun more than three 

 years ago, on the fossil starfishes of America. Mr. Lucas has com- 

 pleted a study of the fossil bison; identified a series of vertebrates from 

 the White River Miocene, submitted by the Geological Survey, and 

 described a hitherto unknown fossil snake from the Eocene of Alabama. 



SOURCES OF NEW MATERIAL. 



AVith the exception of the collections of Kinderhook fossils made by 

 Mr. Paul Bartsch, of the Division of Mollusks, while at his home in 

 Burlington, Iowa, no geological explorations of consequence have 

 been undertaken by members of the Museum staff", Mr. F. W. Crosby, 



