KEPOKT OF NATIOJJ'AL MUSEUM, 1912. 63 



In many instances, moreover, sufficiently wide spaces have been left 

 between the high cases to permit the introduction of large individual 

 objects on special bases. By this plan the visitor is enabled to compre- 

 hend the entire layout of any hall almost at a glance, and in passing 

 down the main aisle to see all of the material in each case, but, of 

 course, this arrangement has not everywhere been practicable. Wliile 

 the space occupied by the department is considerably gi-eater than in 

 the older building, yet the number of specimens displayed is rela- 

 tively much less, which is an advantage to the public. Another im- 

 provement affecting the appearance of the halls has been the general 

 avoidance of the use of diaphragms in the cases, and where their 

 introduction in the higher cases has been necessary .they have been 

 carried only to the height of the upper shelf and ha-ve been stopped 

 some 15 inches from the ends, thus doing away with the unsightly 

 vertical bars and shelf ends so conspicuous under the older method 

 and permitting the installation to be carried around the ends of the 

 cases. By placing the general case labels inside the cases instead of 

 in frames on the outside, a still further improvement in the effect of 

 the installation is considered to have been made. 



Researches. — Owing to the amount of routine work in connection 

 with the overhauling and arrangement of the collections the scientific 

 staff of the department had little opportunity for conducting original 

 researches. The head curator, Dr. George P. Merrill, continued his 

 investigations relative to the occurrence of the rarer elements in 

 meteorites under a grant from the National Academy of Sciences. 

 He published one short paper on a stony meteorite from Scott County, 

 Kans., and made ready for printing two other papers on meteorites 

 from Missouri and Kansas. Dr. J. E. Pogue, assistant curator of 

 mineralogy and petrology, made a crystallographic study of quartz 

 from Alexander County, N. C-, and reports the practical completion 

 of his treatise on turquois, on which he has been engaged during the 

 past two years. 



Dr. Charles D. Walcott, Secretary of the Institution, completed 

 and published studies on Middle Cambrian annelids and crustaceans, 

 on the Cambro-Ordovician boundary in British Columbia with de- 

 scription of fossils, and on the Sardinian Cambrian genus Olenopsis 

 in America. He also finished a monograph of the Cambrian Bra- 

 chiopoda, and continued work on the Upper Cambrian (Saratogan) 

 fauna of New York, the Cambrian fossils of China, and the trilobite 

 genus Dicellocephalus. 



Dr. R. S. Bassler, curator of paleontology, prepared the chapters 

 on Ostracoda, Phyllopoda, Bryozoa, and other groups for the new 

 English edition of ZitteFs Textbook of Paleontology, and completed 

 a study of the Devonian Ostracoda and Bryozoa of Maryland, He 



