456 A. Smith Woodward — Visit to American Museums. 



specimens from the Hamilton Group made known by Prof. J. M. 

 Clarke in the Bull. U. S. Geol. Survey, No. 16 (1885). The 

 palaeontologist interested in the lower vertebrates, however, finds 

 much to occupy him in the collection of recent fish skeletons made 

 by Prof. Theodore Gill, who has contributed perhaps more than 

 any other ichthyologist to our knowledge of those parts with which 

 the palaeontologist is alone able to deal. At the time of the writer's 

 visit, Prof. Gill was occupied with an investigation of the skeletal 

 anatomy of the eels ; and a large number of beautiful drawings of 

 the cranial osteology of various great groups of bony fishes, as yet 

 in the Professor's portfolio, are intended for the basis of a forth- 

 coming general work, to which all who are interested in palaeich- 

 thyology will anxiously look forward. 



Bochester, N.Y. 

 No European regai'ds a tour on the American Continent complete 

 without at least a brief visit to the remarkable cataract of Niagara, 

 whether regarded merely as a scene or as a noteworthy geological 

 phenomenon ; and the palaeontologist feels an additional attraction 

 in that direction from the close proximity of Bochester, where Prof. 

 Henry A. Ward has his well-known emporium of recent and fossil 

 zoological specimens, rocks, and minerals. "This is not a Museum, 

 but a working establishment, where all are very busy ! " — according 

 to the printed notice that first meets the visitor's eye ; but there is 

 always a welcome for the Naturalist, and the specimens are far 

 more carefully displayed and more beautifully kept than in many 

 Museums the writer has had the privilege of visiting. In addition 

 to the ordinary routine of business, Prof. Ward is at present engaged 

 upon an unique collection of the skeletons of marine Invertebrata ; 

 while his geological partner, Mr. E. E. Howell, is equally absorbed 

 in bringing together an extensive series of Meteorites. The 

 Professor's visit to South America last year resulted in the discovery 

 of several skeletons of the large extinct Edentata, which are now 

 being mounted for the Agassiz Museum at Cambridge ; and the 

 large collection of material in the palaeontological galleries comprises 

 much that is as yet quite unrepresented in European Museums. 

 Numerous Cretaceous Fishes and Mosasaurians from Kansas, a large 

 series of the well-known fishes of the Green Biver Shales, and 

 several Chelonian and Mammalian fossils from the Tertiaries of the 

 West, were among the principal Vertebrates the writer observed. 



Toronto. 

 Fossil Vertebrata do not appear to have been much represented 

 in the Museum of the Toronto University. It may, however, be 

 remarked that all the palasontological specimens were in the main 

 building, of which the greater part was destroyed by last year's 

 disastrous fire. The collection will thus require complete renewal. 



Ottawa. 



In the Canadian capital, closely adjoining the Government grounds, 

 is the small, neatly arranged Museum of the Geological Survey, 



