KEPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 31 



in Now Mexico by Mr. Vernon Bailey. Plants from Australia. Mexico, 

 Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and from several of the States were acquired 

 by purchase. 



There were 690 accessions to the Department of Geolog} r , the most 

 extensive coming, as usual, from the U. S. Geological Survey. Promi- 

 nentamong them were about 40,000 invertebrate fossils, mostly named, 

 and including a large amount of material on which Dr. William 11. 

 Dall and his assistants have been working for several years. The 

 Survey also transmitted a series of 1,932 tertiary insects, assembled 

 by Dr. Samuel H. Scudder, but in large part still unworked, together 

 with many hundred original drawings, a great part of which are 

 unpublished. The acquisition of these specimens is believed to make 

 the Museum collection of fossil insects the largest in the United 

 States, if not in the world. 



To the division of physical and chemical geology there were added 

 a collection of platiniferous rocks from the Demidoff mines of Russia, 

 presented by Mr. Juarez Sponville; a series of rocks illustrating the 

 occurrence and association of diamonds at the De, Beers Consolidated 

 Mines, Kimberly, South Africa, donated by Mr. Gardner F. Williams, 

 manager of the mines; a beautiful nugget of native silver, from Mr. 

 A. L. Pellegrin, of Nogales, Arizona; a specimen of diamond-bearing 

 gravel from Minas Geraes, Brazil, to which a small diamond was 

 attached, from Dr. O. A. Derby, of Sao Paulo, aiid a tine mass of 

 amethystine quartz, weighing about 400 pounds, taken from the ex- 

 traordinary geode discovered a few years ago in Rio Grande do Sul, 

 Brazil. 



The division of minerals was enriched by a large collection illus- 

 trating the occurrence and association of zeolites and siliceous minerals 

 in the trap rocks of New Jersey, obtained through the assistance of 

 Dr. W. S. Disbrow, of Newark, New Jersey, who also transmitted 

 one of the first known crystals of American spodumene obtained in 

 the early part of the nineteenth century. Other important gifts 

 were a specimen of pink spodumene used as gem material, from Mr. 

 F. M. Sickler; a series of artificial stones used in the gem trade, from 

 Mr. Oscar T. Jonassohn; a cut turquoise from North Carolina, from 

 Mr. Eugene A. Smith, and some fine specimens of smoky quartz from 

 Montana, from Messrs. A. P. Pohndorf and J. R. Wharton. 



For the meteorite collection specimens illustrating the Trenzano 

 fall, the Franceville, Missouri, iron, the Mukerop. South Africa, iron, 

 and the Finnmarken pallasite were acquired. 



Of invertebrate fossils, the accession next in importance to those 

 transferred by the U. S. Geological Survey was the last portion of the 

 E. O. Ulrich collection, containing about 15,000 specimens, including 

 500 lots of original types or of specimens that have been used for illus- 

 tration. A series of Lower Silurian fossils, selected by Mr. Charles 



