366 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 



taut proportion of the paleontological material contained in our best 

 museums is without these essential records, and that many of the publi- 

 cations containing descriptions and illustrations of fossil remains give no 

 satisfactory information as to the localities and strata from which they 

 were obtained or of the final disposition of the specimens. In such cases 

 those authors and collectors have evidently assumed to decide for 

 themselves and for scieuce the exact taxonomic position in the geolog- 

 ical scale <>f the strata from which their fossils came. In omitting such 

 records as have been referred to they seem to have considered any 

 information unnecessary that would enable the scientific public to 

 repeat their observations upon their specimens or those which they 

 may have made in the field, or to learn the biological characteristics of 

 the formations from which their collections were obtained other than 

 those which may be suggested by their own partial collections and their 

 necessarily imperfect descriptions. It is doubtless true that such omis- 

 sions have been largely due to an honest lack of appreciation on the 

 part of authors and collectors of the importance of preserving such 

 records, but it is to be feared that in some important cases the omis- 

 sions or suppressions have been intentional. In the former class of 

 cases the fact can only be deplored, but in the latter every geologist is 

 justified in feeling that a crime has been committed against science. 



The claims of geological science upon associations and societies are 

 so generally and justly recognized that only the one which relates to 

 the manner of publishing the results of investigation need be referred 

 to in this connection, and this reference will be confined to the necessity 

 of enforcing the claims upon individual investigators which have al- 

 ready been discussed. This claim may be sufficiently indicated by ref- 

 erence to those last mentioned, and by the remark that if it is the duty 

 of individuals to publish records of their observations in the manner 

 that has been stated, it is plainly the duty of those persons Avho maybe 

 in charge of the means of publication to refuse to publish the writings 

 of those authors who do not conform to that requirement. 



The facts and principles which have been stated in the preceding 

 essays fully warrant the statements made on foregoing pages of this 

 one, that individual authority can have no existence with relation to 

 geological science, that the public must be the final arbiter of all ques- 

 tions concerning the value of proposed contributions to its advance- 

 ment, and that a public exposition should be made of the evidence upon 

 which any contribution to biological geology is based. In accordance 

 with the last-named requirement it is necessary to consider the claims 

 of this branch of science upon museums, the force of which is apparent 

 when it is remembered that the material pertaining to it therein stored 

 constitutes the vital evidence of the value of all contributions to its 

 advancement, and that without such evidence this branch of science 

 would be reduced to a mass of personal testimony. 



In view of the great scientific value of fossil remains the following 



