NOVEMBEK 16, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



757 



THE GEOLOGICAL AND PALEONTOLOGICAL 

 COLLECTIONS IN THE A3IERICAN MU- . 

 SEU3I OF NATURAL HISTORY* 



This informal paper was prepared by the 

 author (in the absence of Professor R. P. 

 Whitfield, who has been curator of the Geo- 

 logical Department of the Museum for more 

 than twenty-three years) at the request of 

 the officers of Section E, so that members 

 in attendance at the meeting of the Associ- 

 ation might know in a general way what to 

 look for on visiting the Museum. 



The first series of valuable fossils to be 

 acquired by the American Museum of Nat- 

 ural History was the Holmes collection from 

 the Tertiary deposits of South Cai'olina. 

 This included the types of the species de- 

 scribed in Tuomey and Holmes' works. f 

 The second important series to be put on 

 exhibition was the set of eight mounted 

 skeletons of moas from ISTew Zealand, con- 

 stituting the De Haas types of those birds. 

 There are eight unmounted skeletons in the 

 same collection, thirteen species being rep- 

 resented in all. 



The main portion of the department's 

 specimens is composed of the James Hall 

 collection, the acquisition of which in 1875 

 placed the Museum in the lead among 

 American institutions in respect to Paleo- 

 zoic fossils, on account of the great number 

 of types and figured specimens contained 

 therein, such specimens being numbered by 

 the thousand. J Especially noteworthy in 

 the Hall collection, aside from the wonder- 

 fully rich New York series, are the Pots- 

 dam fossils from Minnesota and Wisconsin ; 

 Trenton forms from Wisconsin and Iowa, 



* Read before Section E of the American Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science, June 26, 1900. 



fPleiocene Fossils of South Carolina, by M. 

 Tuomey and F. S. Holmes. 4to. Charleston, S. C, 

 1857 ; Post-Pleiooene Fossils of South Carolina, by 

 F. S. Holmes. 4to. Charleston, S. C, 1860. 



% Published principally in the reports of the State 

 Geological Surveys of New York, Iowa, Wisconsin 

 and Indiana. 



the unfigured types of which have been 

 republished by Professor Whitfield with 

 figures in the Memoirs of the Museum ; 

 Niagara fossils from Waldron, Indiana ; 

 corals from the Falls of the Ohio river; 

 crinoids from Burlington, Iowa, and the 

 remarkable Lower Carboniferous fauna of 

 Sperg6n Hill, Indiana, both of which last 

 have been republished by Professor Whit- 

 field with figures from the original types, 

 the former in the Memoirs and the latter 

 in the Bulletin of the Museum. 



Other collections which may be men- 

 tioned are the Chazy and Fort Cassin fos- 

 sils from the vicinity of Lake Champlain, 

 containing types which have been described 

 by Professor Whitfield in the Bulletin of the 

 Museum ; a complete set of the Vermont 

 and New Hampshire rocks illustrating the 

 geological survey of those States by Pro- 

 fessor C H. Hitchcock, and the types of the 

 Tertiary plants from~ Brandon, Vermont; 

 an excellent series of Paleozoic fossils from 

 Illinois and neighboring States ; fossils from 

 the Cretaceous marls of New Jersey, col- 

 lected and presented to the Museum by 

 Professor Whitfield, and fine sets offish re- 

 mains from the Triassic of the Connecticut 

 valley and the Tertiary beds of Wyoming. 

 The most recent noteworthy addition is one 

 of the Tyrrell collections of placoderm fishes 

 from the Devonian rocks of Ohio. 



The arrangement of the collection is that 

 devised by Professor Whitfield when he 

 came to the Museum, and it is worthy of 

 careful consideration on account of the way 

 it has stood the test of time and use. Be- 

 ginning at the northeast corner of the hall 

 (because that is beside what was originally 

 the only entrance to the room and was un- 

 derstood to be the permanent main entrance 

 thereto) the specimens are arranged strati- 

 graphically in ascending geological order. 

 Under the stratigraphic arrangement, the 

 grouping is by geographical or lithological 

 provinces, first New York, or eastern and 



