RELATION OF BIOLOGY TO GEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION. 367 



remarks are offered concerning the precautions which are necessary in 

 their preservation. Tt is true that most if not all these precautions 

 arc observed in a large part of the principal scientific museums of the 

 world, but it is also true that much remissness in this respect has 

 occurred in others. Besides the propriety of referring to the latter fact, 

 these remarks are necessary to complete my statement of the claims of 

 science which constitute the subject of this essay. 



Three general classes of specimens of fossil remains should be rec- 

 ognized in museum collections, namely, typical, authenticated, and 

 unauthenticated. Under the head of typical or type specimens arc 

 included not only those which have been described and figured in any 

 publication, whether original or otherwise, but those which have in any 

 public manner been so used or referred to. While all such specimens 

 as these should at all times be accessible to any competent investiga- 

 tor, the risk of loss or injury is so great that they should in no case be 

 allowed to be taken from the museum building in which they are in- 

 stalled. Such specimens are in a peculiar sense unique, and there can 

 be no substitution and no equivalent in value. Their loss greatly re- 

 duces the value of every publication any part of which is based upon 

 them, and to that extent retards the advancement of science. It is not 

 enough that other, and even better, specimens of presumably the same 

 species may be discovered; the former constitute the original, the latter 

 only supposititious evidence. Besides the risk of loss or injury to type 

 specimens by removal from the place of their installment their absence 

 is a disadvantage to science. That is, no one investigator should be 

 allowed their use to the exclusion of any other. 



The term u authenticated specimens" is here applied to such as have 

 been studied and annotated by competent investigators and properly 

 installed. Such material constitutes the bulk of every important mu- 

 seum collection, and next to the type specimens already mentioned 

 they are most valuable. Their increased value is due to the scientific 

 labor that has been bestowed upon them, and it needs only the addi- 

 tional labor of publication to constitute them type specimens and to 

 make them of like value. Authenticated specimens when installed are 

 ready aids to all investigators of such value that even the temporary 

 removal of any of them from a public museum is, to say the least, of 

 doubtful expediency. 



Unauthenticated specimens are, of course, those which have not been 

 studied and installed, and they constitute the great mass of material 

 from which authenticated and type specimens are drawn. Among 

 them are those which constitute the material evidence upon which 

 original observations in biological geology are based. If these are 

 accompanied by the records and descriptive notes which on a preceding 

 page have been shown to be essential to their value, they constitute 

 proper material for acceptance by museum authorities, but if not their 

 installment should be refused, whatever their character may be. That 



