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others, like whom he was a pioneer in the special field 

 of research he had entered. In the following report we 

 have in his own words an account of his Brazilian work 

 from July i, 1877, to January i, 1878. 



"During the past six months the members of the Geo- 

 logical Commission have been quite exclusively employed 

 in laboratory work in the building of the Commission in 

 the Corte, the aim being to obtain before the end of the 

 year the largest possible results from the discussion of 

 the material collected to illustrate the geology of the 

 region explored, and at the same time to put this material 

 in the best possible order. 



" It is but seven months since the Commission entered 

 the house it now occupies, and has had space and facili- 

 ties for opening and arranging its collections of rocks, 

 fossils, minerals, etc. In April last it occupied a single 

 room in the building of the Carta Geral, and only an 

 insignificant part of the collection was accessible for 

 study. Since then some four hundred boxes of speci- 

 mens have been unpacked, the latter having been more 

 or less carefully prepared and arranged in such a way as 

 to be readily found when wanted. The manual labor 

 alone involved in preparing and arranging all this mate- 

 rial for study was in itself a gigantic task. So large is 

 the number of specimens that I have not attempted to 

 determine it exactly. But I estimate it roughly as much 

 above five hundred thousand, so that the collections of 

 the Commission form a large museum, and one of the 

 highest value tp science, because its material is unique ; 

 and I am sure, that its money value to-day, if offered for 

 sale, would more than equal the whole sum expended on 

 the Commission. 



" On leaving the field to take up the more difficult and 

 nice work of the laboratory, it is the duty of the geolog- 

 ical explorer to prepare his report on the district he has 

 examined, his material being his note books and his 

 collections of rocks, fossils, etc. The study and identifi- 

 cation of collections, especially of fossils, is tedious and 

 difficult, and can only be carried on rapidly and success- 



