February 22, 1907] 



SCIENCE. 



297 



the Cobequid granite beneath a point 

 slightly south of Apple River; (9) the 

 Apple River borehole and the second hole 

 at Fullerton lake indicate that the fine sedi- 

 ments of the Coal Measures are replaced 

 shoreward by coarse detritus, continuous 

 upward with the New Glasgow conglom- 

 erate of the Permian, so that coal, if 

 present in the main portion of the western 

 half of the basin, frays out southwards; 

 (10) that the strata on the shore of Chi- 

 quecto bay are such as bring the Coal 

 Measures 1,400 feet nearer the surface than 

 at the first Fullerton Lake borehole, and 

 over 2,000 feet nearer than on the floor of 

 the basin north of Fullerton Lake. 



Professor "Woodman's paper was dis- 

 cussed by Professors Grabau, "Woodman, 

 A. M. Miller, Lane and "Woodman. 



Charles Willson Peale's Painting. 'The 

 Exhimving of the First American Masto- 

 don': Arthur Barneveld Bibbins, Balti- 

 more, Md. 



Charles "Willson Peale, who was born in 

 Chestertown, Maryland, in 1741, and 

 known as 'the artist of the Revolution' 

 was among the first to interest himself in 

 American vertebrate paleontology. Al- 

 though very few of his hundreds of paint- 

 ings deal with this subject, one has lately 

 come to light which vividly portrays his 

 keen and practical interest in this direc- 

 tion. This is a canvas six by five feet, 

 painted in 1823 a few years before the 

 artist's death. It is in a good state of 

 preservation and owned by a direct de- 

 scendant of Peale. The subject is 'The 

 Exhuming of the First American Masto- 

 don.' Peale is represented as personally 

 supervising the excavation, with other sci- 

 entific worthies of the day and some mem- 

 bers of his family in attendance. Al- 

 though the figures are small the detail is 

 so perfect that the several personages 

 shown are readily recognizable. An elabo- 



rate and ingenious device for ridding the 

 excavation of water is a notable feature. 



Family history has it that the locality 

 was somewhere in Delaware or New Jersey, 

 that the skeleton was first erected in Phila- 

 delphia, that the discovery was celebrated 

 by a dinner held beneath it and that the 

 building containing it was ultimately 

 burned. Family history also relates that 

 Peale was induced to undertake the ex- 

 huming of the mastodon by Baron von 

 Humboldt, who had visited this country a 

 few years earlier and was the artist's 

 guest. 



The Peale family was also among the 

 first in America to encourage the establish- 

 ment of natural-history museums, for 

 among the records we find that while Hum- 

 boldt was visiting Charles "Willson Peale 

 and while these gentlemen were entertained 

 at a formal 'three-o'clock dinner' by Presi- 

 dent Monroe, the guests impx'oved their 

 opportunity by asking the president to 

 endeavor to induce Congress to establish 

 a National Museum; also that Peale re- 

 turned from the interview much elated by 

 the assurances that action would shortly be 

 taken. 



In 1813 the artist's son, Rembrandt, 

 started the erection of a Natural History 

 Museum in Baltimore, having previously 

 excited interest in such matters by the ex- 

 hibition of the skeleton of a mammoth. 

 This building, later known as the ' Old City 

 Hall, ' is still standing, and bears the orig- 

 inal legend 'Peale's Museum.' 



Additional Evidence of Tropical Climate 

 on the Middle Atlantic Coast during the 

 Lower Cretaceous: Arthur Barneveld 

 Bibbins, Baltimore, Md. 

 No better evidence of tropical or sub- 

 tropical climate is needed than the exist- 

 ence of dinosaurs as a dominant faunal 

 element, if it be presupposed that reptiles 

 as a class have always been as partial to 



