INTRODUCTION. 



By the favor ol R Selab Merrill, D.D., durinj 

 f fl, | Palestine Exploration Society, and now United States Consul 



lem,the Museum of Comparative Zoology has recently hecome possessed of two small 

 collections of Syrian molluscan fossils, chiefly from the range ol Mount Lebanon The 

 one was made by Dr. Merrill himself, while prosecuting his work of exploration; the 

 other, by Mrs. Bird, wife of Rev. William Bird, a missionary of th Board of 



Commissioners for Foreign Missions, who with his Eamilj has been for manj 



tioned at Al "ill. fifteen miles southeasl of Beirul and i ug the mountains. As a 1 



proportion of these Eossils belong to 3p© u - hitherto undescribed, and as others, of species 

 ! V named, are better specimens of the same than those which were the basis of the 

 original figures and descriptions, it lias seemed d hould he 



studied, and the results of the examination published. 



Among the stores of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, a third small collection of 



Eound, which is undersl 1 to be Erom " Lebanon," and to I 



E orwar ded w M.Thomson, D.D., author of the well- 



known work, "The Land and the Book,"— for more than thirty years missionary in 

 Syria, and at the date specified acting United States Consul at Beirut The material Eor 



investigation thus furnished has i D increased, through the kindness of the officers of 



tne | aa ] Bouse in Boston, by the Loan of some interesting specimens, labelled 



"Mount Leb n,"which are preserved in the Museum of the Ameri 



Unfortunately, 1 is usual with colli de by other than experienced 



oi profi tonal hands, uotes are wanting of the exacl localities with a (>-\\ excepl 

 .,,,,1 of the natun tion of the strata without exception, Erom wbi h thi 



This del ucj renders il ■■ Ear 



,l„. !, ted by the different collections can be identified. 



In Merrill's collection was pu | into mj hands by himself , bearing labels to distinguish 

 specimens found at points outside of the district where the ",vd. 



and for the rest a written statement was madi that "almost all the 



