1863.] SENATE— No. 218. 15 



10th. The only representatives of the Silurian are six large, 

 beautiful specimens, from the State of New York. 



11th. The specimens mentioned above, mostly determined 

 and labelled, are placed in cases and exposed to view for exam- 

 ination and comparison. But there is still in the magazine of 

 the Museum a number of boxes, containing about four hun- 

 dred specimens, which cannot be disposed in cases from want 

 of place. They are mostly from the recent formations of 

 Europe, and from the coal measures of America. Most of the 

 specimens are good and valuable. 



12th. Besides the fossil species, the department of botanical 

 Palaeontology received important additions and an element of 

 success of great value in the collection of palms, fern trees and 

 other equatorial species, immense trunks of which have been 

 brought from Brazil, by Professor Agassiz. These will offer an 

 invaluable advantage for the comparison of the fossil plants, 

 especially in studying their internal structure. I do not think 

 that any other Museum in the world contains such admirable 

 materials for a scientific comparison of fossil plants with those 

 now in existence. 



In summing up this examination, it is found that the Museum 

 has already about two thousand five hundred specimens of 

 fossil plants, and that they represent more than five hundred 

 species. It is by far the greatest number of vegetable remains 

 found in any of the Museums of America. And it is easy to 

 see that in its composition this collection contains the essential 

 elements for the building of a great and solid scientific monu- 

 ment, where the vegetation of every formation may find its 

 place, and be satisfactorily represented. 



Much, however, remains to be done in order to reach this 

 end. It is especially to the gathering and study of the fossil 

 plants of our American formations that the first efforts should 

 be directed ; for of all our formations, except that of the Coal, 

 there are no representatives whatever in the Museum. Never- 

 theless, questions of great importance, occupying now the 

 scientific world can be definitively solved only by good collec- 

 tions of fossil plants, even of our most recent formations. The 

 few vegetable remains, for example, obtained from the Tertiary 

 of Tennessee and of Mississippi and from the Cretacean of 



