180 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1884. 



The national collection of Quaternary shells and their recent allies being 

 necessarily the source of identification of such fossils when newly col- 

 lected and their ultimate repository, with the permission of the Director 

 the curator retained his honorary connection with the Museum, which 

 has lasted nearly twenty years. Work was immediately undertaken to 

 put the general collection in such order that the geologist desiring to 

 identify his fossils might do so with the least expenditure of time and 

 labor. 



In view of the arrears of work to be made up this was no small under- 

 taking and the conclusion of it by no means near at hand. 



As the most immediate needs of the paleontologist are at this time 

 connected with the identification of the American land shells, that part 

 of the collection was first attacked, with the co-operation of Messrs. 

 Stearns and Call. It was placed in complete order, except so far as 

 depositing in cases is concerned, and as soon as the latter, now con- 

 structing, are in readiness the collection will be arranged in them ready 

 for examination and for use. The arrangement of the forms belonging 

 on our southern and southeastern coast, so long neglected and so im- 

 portant in connection with the later fossiliferous beds of our Southern 

 States, was undertaken by the curator himself, and a preliminary paper 

 by him on some recently acquired material from that region appeared 

 in the Proceedings of the Museum during the year. Incidentally it be- 

 came necessary to determine some of the well-known group of Cones, 

 and the entire collection belonging to that genus was carefully revised 

 and is now in condition for satisfactory reference. 



The intimate connection between our deep-sea fauna and thai of the Ter- 

 tiary beds of Southern Europe and the southern and western borders of 

 the United States is well known to geologists and naturalists. A good 

 deal of the leisure of the curator has been devoted to a study of the Gulf 

 and Caribbean deep-sea forms obtained by Prof. Alexander Agassiz 

 on the steamer Blake, a large number of which are already drawn for 

 the engraver, and a considerable amount of text has accumulated. This 

 fauna is intimately related to that of the formations of the isthmuses of 

 Panama and Nicaragua, which separate the two oceans. Were it pos- 

 sible to obtain fuller series of the rocks and fossils from that region, a 

 study of them would without doubt have an important bearing on the 

 projects for piercing the rocky barrier which now stands in the way of 

 commerce. The curator would recommend that, if it be possible, some 

 steps be taken to obtain such a collection, which from the excavations 

 now in progress at Panama would seem to be a work of no great diffi- 

 culty if a collector were once placed on the spot. 



It is with great satisfaction that the curator is able to report that 

 heavy inroads have been made on the mass of material which has ac- 

 cumulated in the store-rooms of the Institution during the past ten years. 

 Much still remains, but a great deal has been examined, catalogued, 

 and assorted, partly for the reserve series and partly as duplicates for 



