﻿28 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 78 



part collected by Dr. Gidley. Most important was the finding of a 

 broken bannerstone, near the bottom of the fossil bone-bearing 

 layer and in apparently normal immediate association with remains 

 of an extinct horse, while remains of the mammoth, mastodon, and 

 mylodon were recovered at the same level a few feet away. The 

 shallowness of the fossil bone layer, the general character and dis- 

 position of the deposits, the little altered condition of the fossil 

 bones and the aspect of the immediate surroundings, all suggest, 

 however, a not remote antiquity for the origin of this material, 

 and again raises the question of whether or not a remnant of the 

 American Pleistocene fauna may not have survived to a much later 

 date in the southern border of the United States than has hitherto 

 been supposed. 



FIELD-WORK IN ASTROPHYSICS 



With the unanimous endorsement of the National Academy of 

 Sciences, the Chiefs of the United States and British Weather Ser- 

 vices, and of several other eminent meteorologists, the Congress of 

 the United States increased its appropriation for the Astrophysical 

 Observatory sufficiently to enable the Smithsonian Institution to 

 continue the solar radiation station at Montezuma, Chile, for the fiscal 

 year 1926. Hitherto this station has been carried in part by the in- 

 come of the Hodgkins fund of the Smithsonian Institution and in 

 part by the grants of Mr. John A. Roebling, who has now discon- 

 tinued his support, after expending a very large sum on this and 

 related researches. 



The Smithsonian has therefore been able to continue daily obser- 

 vations of the variation of the sun at two exceptionally cloudless 

 desert stations. Daily telegrams have been received within 24 hours 

 after the observations, which indicate the independent results of 

 the two observatories. This information has been communicated 

 immediately to Mr. H. H. Clayton, who has continued his studies of 

 the relations of solar variation to weather. As a test of his results, 

 he has sent daily solar forecasts to the Institution estimating the 

 temperature of New York City 3, 4, and 5 days in advance. He has 

 also sent (3 days before their commencements) forecasts of tem- 

 perature departures at New York for each week and month. 



These results will not be made public as forecasts. They are merely 

 to enable the Smithsonian Institution to estimate Mr, Clayton's suc- 

 cess in these experiments. However, the results hitherto show very 



