4 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. "]"] 



From this economic aspect there is a great demand for workers on 

 the foraminifera and for literature on the subject. The U. S. National 

 Museum and the U. S. Geological Survey have published a consider- 

 able number of papers on the recent and fossil foraminifera of Ameri- 

 can waters and of the Cretaceous and Tertiary of our own country, 

 based upon collections now in the U. S. National Museum. These 

 form the basis for most of the work that has been done on American 

 foram.inifera. Much more needs to be done to describe in detail the 

 many species of our American fossil and recent faunas. 



The economic use of the foraminifera is perhaps one of the very 

 best examples of the application of purely scientific work to economic 

 uses. It shows also how valuable are the collections made by such 

 agencies as the U. S. National Museum, the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries, 

 the U. S. Geological Survey and the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. 

 Through these agencies there has been accumulated the great mass of 

 fossil and recent material containing foraminifera which through its 

 study has become of great economic value. 



The demand for workers on the foraminifera has made necessary 

 rapid training of numerous students, often where facilities for such 

 study are not available. There are certain requisites which are neces- 

 sary to a trained worker. Some of these are the study of good material, 

 access to type collections, familiarity with the literature and the 

 knowledge of the group, which can be obtained only after much 

 study. There is a tremendous amount of literature, nearly a thousand 

 books and papers being listed in Sherborn's Bibliography of the 

 Foraminifera published in 1888, which number has since then more 

 than doubled. Except for the papers published by the U. S. Govern- 

 mental agencies, the U. S. National Museum and the U. S. Geological 

 Survey, there are almost no papers dealing with American fossil 

 and recent foraminifera. A great deal of this earlier literature 

 is European and published in many different languages. Many of the 

 works are available only in a few places in this country. For this 

 reason American students have been greatly handicapped in their 

 work. It is to help in such ways that this present paper is prepared 

 and the rather profusely illustrated publications of the U. S. National 

 Museum and the U. S. Geological Survey have been published. They 

 will many times repay their cost in their economic use to the petroleum 

 industry alone. 



GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE FORAMINIFERA 



In the earliest work on this group, these animals were supposed 

 to be molluscs, and to belong to such genera as Nautilus. That they 



