34 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



REPORT ON THE DEPARTMENT OF VERTEBRATE 



PALAEONTOLOGY. 



By Charles R. Eastman. 



The greater part of July and August, 1897, was passed by the 

 Assistant in Iowa and Illinois, making collections of fossil fishes. 

 .Very gratifying success attended the operations at the State Quarry 

 Fish-bed, near North Liberty, Iowa, where, as stated in the last Re- 

 port, arrangements had been made with Professor Calvin whereby 

 the Museum was able to participate with the Iowa State Geological 

 Survey in its further exploitation. A force of quarrymen was en- 

 gaged to blast out several hundred cubic yards of the cherty ledge 

 at the base of an abandoned working alongside the Iowa River, 

 after which the blocks were broken up on the spot and the fossils 

 extricated in the rough. In all, ten boxes, weighing about three 

 quarters of a ton in the aggregate, were shipped to Cambridge as 

 the Museum's share, and their contents were carefully prepared 

 out from the matrix during the past winter and spring. 



Scientifically the material obtained from the State Quarry Fish- 

 bed is of very great interest, not only on account of its excellent 

 state of preservation, which allows the preparation of beautiful 

 histological sections, but also because of the unique assemblage of 

 Dipnoan remains. There are also a number of important geologi- 

 cal problems bearing upon the deposit, some of which are discussed 

 in the current volume of the Annual Report of the Iowa State 

 Geological Survey. Some preliminary notes on the character of 

 the fish fauna are also presented in the same Report, but the results 

 of its detailed investigation have not as yet been published. 



Collections belonging to several private individuals were exam- 

 ined by the Assistant in various places, but as the owners were 

 unwilling to part with them except on an integral basis, it was not 

 deemed expedient to increase our stock of duplicates to so large 

 an extent for the sake of a much smaller proportion of choice 

 desiderata. 



