REPORT ON THE DEPAETMEKT OE GEOLOGY. 87 



specimens can be placed upon exhibition. Il will be sonic years before 

 they can expect to compare favorably with those which have been 

 longer in existence. 



RESEARCH AND PUBLICATION. 



The head curator is engaged in investigations upon a series of 

 nepheline-melilite rocks, collected by C IL Hitchcock in Oahu, 

 Hawaii, and has completed a study of the stony meteorite which fell 

 in Felix, Alabama, in L900. He has published during the year, in con- 

 nection with Dr. H. N. Stokes, a paper on a stony meteorite which fell 

 at Allegan. Michigan, in 1899, and an iron meteorite from Mart, Texas. 

 The Guide to the Study of the Collections in the Section of Applied 

 Geology, which was mentioned in the last report as being in the hands 

 of the Government Printer, has been issued, and comprises pages L57 

 to 4s:;. inclusive, of the Annual Report for 1899. 



The transfer of the laboratory from the second to the third floor of 

 the southwest pavilion not merely gives better space for office pur- 

 poses on the second floor, but enables us to concentrate the work 

 of the geological and mineralogical divisions and make a considerable 

 saving in time and energy as well as expense for material and appa- 

 ratus. Should Dr. Fireman continue in the department as chemist, 

 we may hope to see an important improvement, both in the quantity 

 and quality of the work done upon the collections. Mr. Tassin is at 

 present engaged in an analysis of a damourite from California, involving 

 the determination of boron, which, it is thought, may have an impor- 

 tant bearing upon the establishment of the formula for this mineral. 

 He is also continuing his work on the dehydration of the metallic 

 hydrates, with especial reference to the hydration of ferric and ferrous 

 sulphates and the dehydration of the resultant hydrates and basic salts. 

 The manuscript of a handbook on the Gem Collection, mentioned in 

 my last report as in process of preparation, has been completed and is 

 in the hands of the Government Printer. 



Mr. Schuchert has continued his work on a Monograph of American 

 Fossil Starfishes, and hopes to complete Part I of the same during the 

 coming winter. He has also continued his studies relative to the /ones 

 separating the Upper Silurian and Lower Devonian faunas in America, 

 and has published a paper on the Helderbergian fossils near Montreal. 

 Canada, in which he gives a corrected list of the fossils found on St. 

 Helens Island. This shows that two distinct faunas are there found. 

 one, the Helderbergian, older than the agglomerate, and another from 

 blocks in the agglomerate, of Middle Devonian age, the Helderbergian 

 fauna being not mixed with the Silurian nor Middle Devonian fossils, 

 as stated by previous workers. 



Mr. Lucas has begun the work of preparing the text for the volume 

 on Stegosaurs projected by the late Prof. O. C. Marsh. He has also 

 given some little time to the study of the mastodons of North America, 



