26 



REPORT ON THE PAL^ONTOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT. 



By Alpheus Hyatt. 



The work of the past year has been marked by a notable advance 

 towards completion of the general arrangement of the Inverte- 

 brates. With the exception of certain small collections of Permian 

 and Triassic Fossils in Room C which still remain undivided, and 

 a collection of slabs and undeveloped materials which have been 

 placed in cases reserved for such purposes in Room A, the larger 

 part of all the fossils of each class have been brought together 

 in the following order: the Protozoa, Sponges, Hydroids, Corals, 

 and Echinoderms in Room A ; the Worms, Bryozoa, Brachiopods, 

 Insects, Crustacea, and Trilobites in Room B ; the Lamellibranchs, 

 Pteropods, and the larger part of the Gasteropods in Room C ; and 

 the remaining Gasteropods and all the Cephalopods in Room D. 

 There still remain, in all of the collections which have not been 

 carefully gone over specimen by specimen, a considerable pro- 

 portion of misplaced fossils, which can only be weeded out by very 

 close work. This is the case especially in those collections, such 

 as the Senary, Dyer, Day, and others, which contain considerable 

 amounts of unnamed specimens. During the progress of this re- 

 vision, a large number of choice Fossils suitable for exhibition in 

 the Stratigraphic Collection were picked out and marked with 

 appropriate labels. Although the separation of the classes into 

 genera has made considerable progress in past years, and in some 

 classes may be said to be well advanced, it is hopeless to expect 

 to complete this for any one of these natural divisions until the 

 general arrangement has been practically finished. 



This work, and that of picking out specimens for exhibition in the 

 Stratigraphic Collection, can now be continued with much greater 

 facility. Blue print maps are hung in each room giving floor plans 

 with the cases in white, and upon these the number of each case is 

 given and brief abstracts of its contents. Each case has an out- 

 side label hanging to the knob of the sash giving a number and a 



