140 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



meal, being represented by the actual sub- 

 stance. 



Recently the exhibition corridors and halls 

 of the American Museum have presented, 

 even to the casual observer, a very practical 

 demonstration of the cooperation of the 

 American Museum with the high schools of 

 the city. Regent's week at the schools recurs 

 twice a year and as only about one-half of 

 the pupils can take the examination at one 

 time, excursions are arranged to the Museum 

 for lectures and laboratory work in biology. 

 Upwards of five thousand pupils visited the 

 Museum during the week. Each class at- 

 tended at least one lecture, besides doing the 

 laboratory work planned for. Lectures, illus- 

 trated with colored lantern slides and motion 

 pictures, were given at intervals during the 

 week by Mr. George H. Sherwood, curator 

 of public education. Dr. G. Clyde Fisher and 

 Mr. Paul B. Mann. 



A COURSE of lectures open to school children 

 will be given at the American Museum on 

 Monday afternoons at four o'clock, beginning 

 March 6 and lasting through April 10; on 

 Wednesday afternoons, beginnmg March 8 

 and las tmg through April 12; Thursday after- 

 noons, beginning March 9 and lasting through 

 April 13, and Friday afternoons, begmning 

 March 10 and lasting through April 14. 



Mr. George K. Cherrie will lecture on 

 Friday evening, March 17, to the adult blind 

 of Greater New York on "With Colonel 

 Roosevelt on the River of Doubt." Mr. 

 Cherrie was the naturalist detailed by the 

 American Museum to accompany Colonel 

 Roosevelt on the South American trip which 

 resulted in the discovery of the River 

 "Duvida," now named River Roosevelt. 



The first annual meeting of a society for 

 the study of fish and reptiles will be held 

 in the Museum on March 8 at 9.30 a.m. 

 Papers are scheduled to be presented by 

 Professor Ulric Dahlgren of Princeton Uni- 

 versity; Dr. Thomas Barbour of the Agassiz 

 Museum, Cambridge, and Mr. Henry W. 

 Fowler of the Philadelphia Academy of 

 Natural Sciences. Messrs. Lang and Chapin 

 of the American Museum staff will show 

 slides of some of the interesting fishes and 

 reptiles of the Congo region. This society 

 has been formed with the object of bringing 



ichthyologists and herpetologists into closer 

 touch with one another for purposes of study 

 and the advancement of science, and the meet- 

 ing is open to any person interested in fishes, 

 batrachians or reptiles. Professor Bashford 

 Dean, curator emeritus of the Museum's 

 department of ichthyology and herpetology, 

 will be the first president of the society. 



There has been prepared in the taxidermy 

 laboratory of the American Museum of Nat- 

 ural History a life-size model of the extinct 

 fishhke animal Dinichthys. This creature 

 lived about twenty million years ago in the 

 sea that existed on the site of the present 

 state of Ohio. Dinichthys was one of the 

 most ferocious animals that ever lived in the 

 sea. Although like a fish in appearance it is 

 regarded by scientists as belonging to a lower, 

 more primitive order. Its head and the front 

 half of the body were protected by heavy 

 plates of bone, so that it swam about like an 

 armored fish-cruiser. It was quite safe 

 against attack by the other dinichthyids 

 and by the sharks that lived in the same habi- 

 tat. It had tremendously powerful jaws, with 

 "fangs" in front, and behind these, knifelike 

 cutters which chopped against each other. 

 Five or six species of Dinichthys, ranging 

 from two to fifteen feet in length, lived side 

 by side in the Ohio sea. The species 

 mounted {Dinichthys intermedins) reached 

 a length of about eight feet. 



Among the more important additions 

 made to the collection of minerals, largely 

 through the expenditure of the income from 

 the Bruce Fund, are the following: a superb 

 crystal of rubellite, (tourmaline), showing a 

 parallel intergrowth of two individual crys- 

 tals; a very showy, blue-green smithsonite, 

 relieved by a white surface of crystallized 

 calcite, from New Mexico; a plumose mi- 

 caceous aurichalcite covering scalenohedral 

 calcite, also from New Mexico; vivid yeUow 

 autunite in platy crystals, from South 

 Australia; an opalized stem from Nevada 

 of white opal with fiery foci distributed over 

 it; curved, pink tourmalines in crystallized 

 lepidolite from California; a unique speci- 

 men of amblygonite showing crystal faces; 

 two remarkable specimens of mammiUary 

 or botryoidal cassiterite from Mexico; the 

 rare parahopeite from South Africa and the 

 minerals new to the collection, epidesmine, 

 fizelyite, jezekite, barthite and bavenite. 



