Report of the President. 1 3 



contains representatives of nearly five hundred falls and finds, 

 and ranks as one of the largest collections of fragments of 

 these visitors from space. At present, for lack of other case- 

 room, these valuable and interesting specimens are crowded 

 together in some of the desk cases. 



The Gem Collection. — At the outset of its existence the 

 Department of Mineralogy was confronted with the problem 

 of installing the Gem collection, which had been greatly 

 enlarged, more than doubled, in fact, by the acquisition of the 

 magnificent Tiffany exhibit at the Universal Exposition at 

 Paris. The purchase of this exhibit was made possible through 

 the generosity of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, to whom, indeed, 

 we were indebted for our first gem collection, a series of 

 stones which compared favorably with others of its kind and 

 gave delight and instruction to thousands of visitors. The 

 gem collection has been installed in an attractive manner at 

 the southern end of the hall west of the Mineral hall. To 

 undertake an enumeration of the salient points of a collection 

 like this would be quite without the scope of this report, but 

 attention may be called to the marvelous display of cut and 

 uncut materials in the groups of corundums (sapphires), beryls 

 (emeralds), topazes, garnets, tourmalines, chrysoberyls (alex- 

 andrites), opals, amethysts, diamonds, golds and pearls. The 

 carved and engraved vases and other objects of jadeite, 

 nephrite, rhodonite and rock crystal attract the notice of 

 every visitor. A descriptive catalogue of this noble collection 

 is being prepared by Mr. George F. Kunz. 



Department of Geology and Invertebrate Palaeon- 

 tology. — The work of the Curator of the department carried 

 the task of labeling the palseontological collection well for- 

 ward, 2,187 exhibition labels, bearing generic, specific and 

 authors' names, geological formation and locality, having been 

 prepared for individual specimens. The great amount of 

 geological material which was received with the James Hall 

 collection, and which has not been taken from the original 

 boxes heretofore for lack of room in which to store the speci- 



