394 A. Smith Woodward — Visit to American Museums. 



the rooms of a private house, while many of the larger specimens 

 are stowed away in the basement of one of the public museums. 

 The lower room is the only one in which there is any attempt at 

 display, such as would interest an ordinary visitor ; but the apart- 

 ments are fitted with shelves and drawers, where nearly all the 

 specimens are placed in small boxes for convenient reference. 

 "When it is remembered that the large majority of the type-specimens 

 described by the Professor are comprised in the collection, its 

 richness will at once be understood ; and the fossils are accompanied 

 by a large number of recent zoological preparations, notably the 

 Hyrtl Collection of fish-skeletons. In the exhibited series, the well- 

 known skeleton of Phenacodus, the skulls of primitive Rhinoceroses, 

 Camels, and other Mammalian bones are conspicuous ; while the 

 huge vertebras and limbs of Camarasavrus, some Mosasaurian remains, 

 etc., represent the Eeptilia. The collection of Permian Amphibia, 

 Eeptilia, and Pisces from Texas, is unique ; and the remarkable 

 preservation of the skeletons in the red sandy matrix enables all the 

 varied anatomical points made known by Prof. Cope to be clearly 

 observed. The writer was especially interested in the skulls of the 

 Ichthyotomous Elasmobranch " Didymodus," which certainly exhibit 

 with distinctness the extraordinary Assuring of the chondro-cranium 

 as described ; though, in the strict sense of the term, is it scarcely 

 accurate to name the segmented parts " bones " ? Ftyonodvs is also 

 worthy of note as being founded upon teeth identical with those 

 lately named Hemictenodus in Britain. The American Cretaceous 

 collection is especially rich in Eeptilia and Pisces, both from the 

 adjoining State of New Jersey, and from the distant territories of the 

 "West. One small series of fossil fishes, from the Niobrara Beds of 

 Dakota (described in Bull. U.S. Geol. Surv., vol. iv. No. 1), is 

 contained in matrix identical in every respect with that of Sahel 

 Alma, Mount Lebanon, and is of especial interest as comprising 

 the same group of generic types as is now well known from the 

 Asiatic locality. The Chimasroid teeth from the Greensand of New 

 Jersey are also conspicuous, and would, in Britain, be nearly all 

 referred to the genus Edaphodon. The North American collection 

 is supplemented by a large series of (supposed) Cretaceous fish- and 

 crocodilian-remains from Brazil, chiefly discovered by Mr. Joseph 

 Mawson, F.G.S. ; and among these may be noted a representative of 

 the European and Asiatic Upper Cretaceous genus Palceobalistum 

 (Pycnodus flabellatus, Cope), besides the well-preserved Anccdopogon 

 tenuidens from Ceara, which is identical with the fish bearing 

 Agassiz' MS. name of Cladocyclus Gardneri. Among earlier Palaeo- 

 zoic fishes, the fine type-specimen of Macropetalichth ys is also here, 

 and much new information as to the characters of this remarkable 

 shield will shortly be published by Professor Cope, who has lately 

 been occupied in the study of the primitive group to which it is 

 referred. Still more interesting, perhaps, is the type of the 

 Carboniferous shielded organism, named Mycterops, which the 

 Professor has naturally regarded as most difficult of interpretation, 

 if truly one of the Chordata, as he originally supposed. The present 



