A. Smith Woodward — Visit to American Museums. 457 



occupying the same building as the offices of the Surveyors. One 

 comparatively large gallery is devoted to Canadian fossils, arranged 

 in stratigraphical order ; and here are conveniently displayed all 

 the type-specimens described in the publications of the Survey. 

 Among lower Vertebrates the fine collection of Devonian Fishes 

 from Scaumenac Bay, made known by Mr. J. F. Whiteaves, F.G.S., 

 is most conspicuous ; and in the total absence of all European 

 material for comparison, one cannot but be struck with the success 

 with which the specimens have been determined and interpreted. 

 Mr. Whiteaves' published figures are, for the most part, slightly 

 restored outlines ; but the specimens are all in an exquisite state 

 of preservation, while many minute points in their skeletal anatomy 

 (e.g. the " lid " of Bothriolepis) have only been exposed by a careful 

 removal of the adhering matrix. Several small Palseoniscid fishes 

 from the Lower Carboniferous of New Brunswick ai*e also exhibited ; 

 and among the miscellaneous collections in cabinets is a large series 

 of fish-fragments from the Coal-measures of Cape Breton, closely 

 resembling a collection that might be obtained from the shales of 

 almost any British Coal-field. Among recent acquisitions is an 

 interesting small collection of Chimseroid teeth and other fish- 

 remains from a newly-discovered Devonian horizon in Winnipeg, 

 which will shortly be described by Mr. Whiteaves. One case in the 

 jmblic gallery is occupied with numerous fragments of Tertiary 

 Mammalia, also lately received from the N.W. Territories ; and these 

 will form the subject of a forthcoming memoir by Prof. E. D. Cope, 

 considerably extending the known range of some of the genera 

 already described from more southern areas. The walls of the 

 Museum are occupied with maps, sections, proof-plates, and several 

 slabs of rock, the latter including among others the well-known 

 footprints of Sauropus, from the Millstone Grit of Nova Scotia, 

 described by Sir J. William Dawson. 



Montreal. 

 There are two interesting palasontological collections in Montreal 

 — that of the Natural History Society, and that founded by Sir J. 

 William Dawson, F.R.S., in the Peter Eedpath Museum of Mc Gill 

 College. The latter, however, alone comprises any Vertebrates of 

 importance. Here are preserved the remarkable skeletons of Laby- 

 rinthodonts discovered by Sir William Dawson in the Carboniferous 

 tree-stumps of the South Joggins ; and here, too, are nearly all the 

 fish-remains described or noticed in the " Acadian Geology." The 

 Labyrinthodont fossils are most difficult of determination from the 

 imperfect and scattered nature of the bones ; and many of the 

 structures most carefully and beautifully figured in Sir William 

 Dawson's well-known memoirs can only be observed after the 

 closest scrutiny. Among the fish-remains, the type of Palatoniscus 

 modulus appears to the present writer to belong to the Scottish Lower 

 Carboniferous genus Canobius, as defined by the latest researches ; 

 while the supposed remains of Rhizodus would in Britain be assigned 

 to its closely related genus Strepsodus. Numerous fish-fragments 

 from the Coal-measures of Nova Scotia indicate the occurrence of 



