BULLETIN 39, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. [24] 



specimen. When the fossils are smaller tliau the tickets put them into 

 vials and stick a ticket on top of the cork, placing one or two loose 

 ones inside the vial. 



Permanent records. — After the collections have been studied and 

 determined, the series of each species selected for permanent preserva- 

 tion is to be entered in the museum catalogue and given a permanent 

 number. It should make no difference how many individuals are 

 reserved to illustrate a species. All from one locality should receive 

 the same number, but if from different localities each lot should have 

 a distinct number. The museum catalogue number should be written 

 or painted upon each fossil with materials of a permanent nature, since 

 these numbers are to guard the museum against all mixing and loss of 

 once acquired information. Black, green, red, or vermilion oil colors, 

 thinned with turpentine and some japan or drier or indelible inks, are 

 probably the best to use for this work. Some museums apply definite 

 values to certain colors or desire that the numbers stand out conspicu- 

 ously, but as rocks have many colors it becomes necessary to first paint 

 on the specimen either a blue, white, or black base, on which is written 

 the catalogue number. This method is very good for mineral, petro- 

 graphic, or rock collections, but it is not necessary to go to so much 

 labor with fossils. All that is required is a permanent number on 

 each and every specimen in the collections. Duplicates need not 

 receive such numbers, since they have locality tickets for their identi- 

 fication, but should be removed from the reserve-study collections. 



TRIMMING ANb CLEANING.^ 



With tools and brushes. — The cleaning of fossils is entirely mechan- 

 ical, and the degree of success will depend largely npon the amount of 

 patience and originality possessed rather than on the kinds of tools. 

 For heavy cutting the ordinary tools of stonecutters are used, but for 

 light work more delicate tools are employed. 



All fossils for study and exhibition should be well cleaned. Eemove 

 the rock or clay from all parts, either by brushing or cutting. Hard, 

 calcareous fossils are sometimes easily cleaned of all clay with a brush 

 made of thin brass wire (see fig. 5). These brushes were first thus 

 employed by Dr. C. E. Beecher, of Yale University. They have been 

 used to great advantage on Waldron (Indiana) fossils, and even on such 

 delicate organisms as crinoids from Crawfordsville (Indiana). How- 

 ever, care must be exercised, since the brushes are quite stiff' and cut 

 the dirt rapidly, compared with bristle brushes. 



'The possibilities of cleaning and removing fossils from hard rocks, and methods 

 for securing minute fossils, or the young stages of adult species, has but begun. In 

 America this tendency had its origin in Albany, N. Y., with Dr. Charles E. Beecher 

 and Prof. John M. Clarke, To the former gentleman the writeir is particularly 

 grateful for many of the directions for cleaning fossils detailed in this paper, and aa 

 well for the reading of this manuscript. 



