42 MUSEUM OP COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. [Mar. 



on tablets, and made ready for the exhibition rooms. A mono- 

 graph of the genus Atrypa is in preparation, and will be ready 

 for publication in the catalogue during the coming year. 



A preliminary survey of the collections has furnished the 

 following data, from which the magnitude and value of the 

 collections, which fill our store-rooms, may be estimated. 



The Palaeozoic Brachiopoda, not including those from Ameri- 

 can localities, where collections have lately been made under 

 the direction of the curator, amount to more than five thou- 

 sand lots, including over fifty thousand specimens. From many 

 important American localities we have large collections, which 

 have been made by students and assistants of the Museum, 

 which not only serve as a complete series of many of our 

 American species, but afford most valuable material for for- 

 eign exchanges. Of these collections those of the Anticosti 

 expedition from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, of Mr. Hartt, from 

 the carboniferous strata of Nova Scotia, and of Mr. St. John, from 

 Waldron Richmond, Spurgin's Hill, and other points in Indiana, 

 are particularly noticeable, as well from the amount of materi- 

 als as for their value in determining the relations of many of 

 the most important sections of the American Palaeozoic series. 



The collections from the European mesozoic and ccenozoic 

 formations increase our list of specimens from typical localities 

 to over ten thousand lots, or upwards of one hundred thousand 

 specimens. Most of the material has come to us from the 

 hands of the best paleontologists of Europe. 



By the purchase of the collections of Professors Bronn and 

 de Koninck the Museum obtained possession of most of the 

 original specimens described by those authors. Effort has been 

 made to increase the advantages, given by the possession of 

 typical specimens, by a system of exchanges with those palaeon- 

 tologists who are at present working on this branch. With 

 this view, collections of the Brachiopoda, collected by the Anti- 

 costi expedition, have been forwarded to a number of the lead- 

 ing palaeontologists of Europe, and the answers, as far as 

 received, give promise of a very favorable response. 



When the arrangement of the collection is completed it will 

 require an area equal to all the shelving in one of our exhibi- 

 tion-rooms for its display. It will, therefore, have to remain 

 for the present in our store-rooms, inaccessible to the general 

 u blic. 



