29 



finished, nor are the collections killy determined or arrang- 

 ed. Everything possible has been done, but the work is 

 not ended. I should state that I have been compelled 

 by circumstances to adopt a system which I otherwise 

 would not have followed. It, to begin with, I had had 

 ample laboratories in the Corte and facilities for study, I 

 should have from time to time recalled assistants, as their 

 field work in certain localities was concluded, to work 

 up their results in the laboratory, and this work would 

 have gone on with the work of the field ; but not having 

 sufficient room in the Corte for the Commission, I was 

 compelled to store away in a warehouse the hundreds of 

 boxes of specimens sent by my assistants, and when the 

 present house was taken, I found it necessary to recall 

 my whole force in order to commence the systematic 

 study of our results. We had scarcely begun this work 

 when field work was put a stop to at the end of July, and 

 since then we have been confined to the reduction of our 

 reports. 



" Since the end of July the whole of the collections 

 have been examined, great numbers of specimens have 

 been prepared and mounted by Messrs, Derby, 'Rathbun, 

 Freitas and Branner, and some have been restored or 

 reproduced in plaster by my preparador ; the condition 

 of the collection and its classification has been steadily 

 improved, and it has been constantly under the most 

 careful inspection to prevent injury by rats and cock- 

 roaches, which, without constant vigilance, destroy speci- 

 mens and preparations, and injure or destroy labels. In 

 no other geological museum that I have examined are 

 collections better cared for or in better shape for work 

 than ours. So immense, however, is the collection, and 

 so abundant is it in new species, that only a small part 

 is accurately determined and arranged, the rest bearing 

 only general labels. In case of a suspension of the Com- 

 mission and the dispersion of its members before an 

 opportunity can be found to study and accurately deter- 

 mine these collections by the assistants who gathered 

 them together, a very large part of this unworked-up 



