512 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROCHESTER MEETING 



Packard. But Lacoe's services to paleontology did not stop with pro- 

 curing the collections from which the specialists should work out the 

 results ; for in some instances he made it possible for the specialist to 

 more fully devote his time to paleontological study, while in other cases 

 he defrayed the expenses for the costly drawings so necessary to adequate 

 paleontologic publication. 



A very imperfect conception of the extent to which the Lacoe collec- 

 tions had already contributed to our knowledge of fossil plants and 

 insects may be gained from a review of the pages of " The coal flora " 

 and the monograph of the flora of the Dakota group, or from Scudder's 

 many papers on the Paleozoic and Tertiary insects of North America. 

 The greater part of the correlative and stratigraphical data included in 

 Lesquereux's great work, " The coal flora," are due to the efforts of Mr 

 Lacoe and his interest in the investigations. The most important por- 

 tion of the fossil plant material in the state collections appears to have 

 been donated by him. He was also bearing the expense of the study 

 and preparation of the manuscripts and illustrations for a supplementary 

 volume of " The coal flora," to be published by the state, when the fail- 

 ing health and death of Professor Lesquereux left the work incomplete. 



In 1891 the collections in Mr Lacoe's hands had increased until they 

 more than filled the entire upper floor of the Pittston First National 

 Bank building, the large hall of which constituted in effect a museum 

 of no mean rank, though on account of the modest and retiring attitude 

 of the founder its very existence was unknown to most residents of the 

 city. It was in that year that he determined to place the great collection, 

 containing many hundreds of types of fossil plants, insects, Crustacea, 

 and fish, in a suitable fireproof repository, where they should receive 

 the necessary preservative care and where they should for all time be 

 accessible to specialists. On account of the painful neglect of such collec- 

 tions that he had witnessed in most municipal and university museums, 

 he determined to place the entire record portions of the collections, in- 

 cluding the types, stratigraphical, geographical, and study series, in the 

 keeping of the National Museum in Washington, which he believed was 

 destined to be the center of biological and geological research in this 

 country. 



The removal of the fossil plant and fish collections, filling 315 boxes, 

 was completed in 1895, by far the greater portion of the specimens being 

 labeled and catalogued in Pittston. The fossil insect, myriapod, and 

 crustacean collections were forwarded to Washington in 1899. The 

 great collection intrusted by Lacoe to the care of the government em- 

 braced about 100,000 Paleozoic plant fossils, including over 575 described 

 or figured specimens ; 800 Dakota plants, including a large number of 



