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TEE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



Osborn, consisting of Dr. C.-E. A. Winslow, 

 Dr. E. W. Tower, and Mr. Akeley. The 

 matter is now awaiting the final decision of 

 the War Department. 



Important explorations in the Huerfano 

 Basin, Colorado, have recently been com- 

 pleted. This little mountain basin is situ- 

 ated in a recess of the Front Kange not far 

 from Pueblo. It is of interest to palaeon- 

 tologists as a few fossil teeth and bones had 

 been found in it of geological age appar- 

 ently between the better known Bridger 

 (Middle Eocene) and Wasatch (Lower 

 Eocene) faunas. It was first explored by 

 Mr. E. C. Hills, of Denver, and subsequently 

 in 1897 by Professor H. F. Osborn and Dr. 

 J. L. Wortman for the American Museum. 

 In 1916, Mr. Walter Granger, assisted by 

 Mr. George Olsen, undertook a more thor- 

 ough search for fossils which was completed 

 this summer, 1918. The collection obtained 

 is a considerable one, although mostly frag 

 mentary, and will be of much scientific in- 

 terest. The best specimen in it is a very 

 Ijerfect skull and jaws with part of the 

 skeleton of Tillotlieriurn (a rare extinct 

 beast which looked a little like a gigantic 

 rodent but was not at all related to the true 

 rodents) discovered in 1916 by Mr. Olsen. 

 The formation in which these fossils are 

 found is a volcanic ash or tuff of about five 

 thousand feet thickness, indicating the con- 

 siderable and long sustained volcanic out- 

 bursts which must have taken place in this 

 region at the time when the Huerfano mam- 

 mals flourished. The stratigraphy of the 

 formation was carefully studied by Mr. 

 Granger, accompanied during part of the 

 time by Mr. Hills, who has devoted many 

 years to the study of the geology of this 

 vicinity, and who is at present curator of 

 geology and mineralogy in the Colorado 

 Museum of Natural History. The scientific 

 results of the Museum expedition will be 

 published later in the American Museum 

 BuUetin. 



The establishment of the Katmai Na- 

 tional Monument by executive order of 

 President Wilson, dated September 24, 1918, 

 is regarded as the first step in making this 

 remarkable region of Alaska accessible to 

 the public as a national park similar to 

 Yellowstone and Yosemite. The area em- 

 braces the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, 



the volcano of Katmai, and considerable 

 outlying territory. It was visited last sum- 

 mer by one of the expeditions of the Na- 

 tional Geographical Society. 



Mr. William deC. Eavexel has been 

 placed in immediate charge of the admin- 

 istration of the United States National 

 Museum at Washington with the title of ad- 

 ministrative assistant to the Secretary. 



The Mission of the French Scholars to 

 the United States visited the American 

 Museum of Natural History on November 

 12, accompanied by Dr. William H. Car- 

 jienter, provost of Columbia University. The 

 Mission was received in the Board Eoom by 

 Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn and mem- 

 bers of the scientific staff and then pro- 

 ceeded on a tour of inspection of the educa- 

 tional methods employed by the Museum in 

 handling its exhibits. The members of the 

 Mission included: Dr. Theodore Eeinach, 

 of the Institut de France; Professor 

 Emmanuel de Martonne, of the University 

 of Paris; Professor Fernand Baldensperger, 

 of the University of Paris ; Professor Charles 

 Cazamian, of the University of Paris; Dr. 

 Etienne Burnet, of the Pasteur Institute 

 (Paris); Mr. Charles Koechlin, composer 

 and critic of music; and Mr. Seymour de 

 Eicoli, art critic and secretary of the 

 Gazette des Beaux-Arts. 



For several months i)ast a series of ex- 

 periments with various jjatterns of life pre- 

 servers have been conducted at the New 

 York Aquarium by a committee headed by 

 Director C. H. Townsend. The tests have 

 been made after the building was closed to 

 visitors for the night, the large sea water 

 tanks serving admirably for observation. 

 First the flotation of the life preserver as 

 worn by a fully dressed man of average 

 height was tested ; sufiicient weights were 

 then attached to its lower edges to maintain 

 it at a water line marked while it was in use 

 and it was then left to float for twenty- 

 four hours or longer. It will be remembered 

 that the first vessel to reach the scene of 

 the "Titanic" disaster found only one body 

 afloat, although bodies with properly at- 

 tached life preservers continued to come 

 to the surface for several days. Naval 

 officers and steamship men have been present 

 at the experiments, but so far the details of 



