28 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZO-OLOGY. [Jan. 



Report on the Paleontological Collection, by N. S. Shaler. 



The greater portion of the work done consisted in the distri- 

 bution of the> stores of materia^, conformably to the plan which 

 had been adopted for the arrangement of the Museum. The 

 paleontological collection had been increasing for many years 

 with great rapidity, without having been under the charge of 

 any one person who could be held responsible for its condition. 

 This resulted in much disorder in some portions of the col- 

 lection, and, as a whole, it presented an unfavorable contrast 

 with the other departments of the Museum. Much time has 

 been given to the labor of overhauling, distributing and label- 

 ling specimens, and though a good deal remains to be done, we 

 have advanced so far that little time will be required to com- 

 plete this merely preliminary work. Besides this task of 

 bringing the collections into a condition in which they can 

 remain without danger until needed for scientific work, consid- 

 erable progress has been made, in a general way, towards the 

 reduction of the materials to the shape in which it is meant 

 they shall finally be brought. The specimens have all been 

 divided according to geological periods, and, in many cases, 

 those of known fossil faunas have likewise been separated, 

 according to such natural divisions. No great effort has yet 

 been made to carry our zoological division below the limits 

 of orders, yet in many cases thte minor groups have been 

 tolerably well determined. 



In accordance with the spirit of the whole work of the 

 Museum, all other considerations have been sacrificed to the 

 most important points of securing an accurate determination 

 of the locality of each specimen, and in the arrangement of 

 specimens to exhibit the phenomena of association as they 

 occur in nature. 



The work of cataloguing has been carried forward as rapidly 

 as time would admit. In the Brachiopoda, where most of this 

 work has been done, about 7,000 entries have been made, 

 including about 65,000 specimens. 



This concludes the list of Paleozoic forms which were in the 

 Museum on the first of January, 1865, as well as all the Tere- 

 bratulse from the Jurassic beds. Catalogues of the Paleozoic 

 Gasteropoda and Lamillibranchiata have been commenced, and 

 with the aid of Mr. C. F. Hartt have been carried up to several 



