186 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 



No gift of greater importance to the department of fossil plants has 

 ever been made than that by Mr. E. D. Lacoe, of Pittston, Pa., under 

 the terms of which his great collection of fossil plants is to be perma- 

 nently deposited in the National Museum. The value of this collec- 

 tion, one of world-wide reputation, is far greater than that of the entire 

 amount of the collections in the department prior to the date of its 

 gift. The task of procuring fossil plants from the older formations for 

 use in paleontological and biological research has been prosecuted for 

 nearly twenty years by its donor, whose liberal means and scientific 

 and practical mining knowledge, as well as his favorable location in the 

 heart of the northern anthracite coal field, have enabled him to bring 

 together an invaluable body of material, of which Prof. Lesqnerenx 

 remarked in one of his last publications: * " Mr. B. 33. Lacoe, of Pitts- 

 ton, has procured from almost all the localities where coal is worked in 

 the United States an immense amonnt of specimens, far beyond any 

 seen, even in the largest museums of Europe." Since the above quota- 

 tion was written Mr. Lacoe has continued his work, having several col- 

 lectors in his employ in various States and the Acadian provinces, a 

 portion of the material collected having been examined by Prof. Les- 

 quereux. Besides gathering this material in the field, he has also pur- 

 chased a number of private collections containing many type speci- 

 mens, so that it is perhaps safe to say that nearly one-half of the types 

 of the American Carboniferous flora now lie within the Lacoe collec- 

 tion. In fact, there are few outstanding American types except those 

 resting in several State geological museums. But even the deficiency 

 in the balance of originals has largely been compensated for by the 

 collection of duplicates from the type localities, and these, like all other 

 collections made prior to 1889, were examined and labeled by the orig- 

 inal author of nine-tenths of the Paleozoic species described from the 

 United States, Leo Lesqnereux. How prominent a part this material 

 has taken in both the biological and economic applications may be 

 recognized at a glance in the three volumes (especially the third) of 

 the "Coal Flora," published with an atlas by the second geological 

 survey of Pennsylvania in 1878-1884, Report P. it is sufficient to add 

 in this place that within this collection the data for working out the 

 geological and geographical distribution of the Carboniferous plant 

 species, as far as they can be worked out at the present stage of explo- 

 ration, is probably more ample than that of all other American collec- 

 tions combined. 



It will at once be seen that the accession of this invaluable wealth 

 of material will necessarily make this institution, as the repository of 

 the types or authentic specimens of nearly all the American Paleozoic 

 species, the reference center for all extensive work ou the Paleozoic 

 flora in this country in future, as well as the custodian of valuable geo- 

 logical correlation data. But the proper installation in this Museum 



*Ami. Rep. 2d Geol. Surv. Penna., 18St>, Pt, 1, p. 493. 



