No. 115.] 15 



relabeling of the marbles, building stones, ores and other similar 

 material. He has arranged in a new case, at the head of the stairs 

 upon the first floor, a series of specimens illustrating certain econ- 

 omic products of the State which formed a part of the New Orleans 

 exhibit, making an instructive addition to that part of the collection ; 

 and also the rearrangement of some portions of the crystalline and 

 metamorphic rocks. These museum duties occupied his time for 

 the early part of the year, and later he has been giving in the field 

 special attention to the quarry industries of the State. The pur- 

 chase of the Kunz collection of minerals and the necessity of 

 arranging the same will occupy a large part of his time during the 

 coming year. 



Mr. C. E. Beecher, assistant in charge of the palgeontological 

 collections has been occupied during the first months of the year 

 upon the collections of fossil lamellibranchiata, and with the assist- 

 ance of Mr. J. M. Clark, the entire collection has been labeled, and 

 a selection of thirty-five collections has been made from the dupli- 

 cates of this class of fossils.* 



Subsequently both of these gentlemen have been occupied in 

 arranging in the State Hall the collections transferred from the 

 rooms occupied in Mr. Hall's buildings. 



Mr. Beecher has"likewise superintended the fitting up of the new 

 office in the State Hall, and later has been working in the preparation 

 of material for the volume on the fossil brachiopoda. 



Dr. J. W. Hall in charge of the zoological collections and of the 

 laboratory for cutting rocks and fossils, has looked carefully after 

 the preservation of the zoological specimens and they have been 

 thoroughly overhauled, cleaned and rearranged. In the laboratory 

 he has superintended and prepared many hundred sections of rocks 

 and toseils preparatory for study under the microscope. Specimens 

 for the museum collections too fragile for breaking by the hammer 

 have been cut and shaped by machinery especially adapted for this 

 purpose. Improvements have been made in the machinery used, 

 and we are now better prepared than ever before to accomplish 

 this kind of work. Among the conveniences added to the museum 

 he has devised a lock for locking or unlocking a series of drawers 

 with a single turn of one key. This invention is already in use in 



* I shall have further occasion to mention Mr. Clarke's work in the report of 

 the State Geologist. 



