102 COl'l'EH (jri'lES MI\K 



Musi'iiin sent to Marliniciuc and St. X'inccnt durinjz; the j2;r('at volcai.ic 

 eruptions of \\n)2-\\){)^ that devastated those ishmds of the 

 Mont Pelee Lesser Antilles chain. A set of four relief niajis shows the 

 ishind of Martini(|ue and its famous volcano, Mont Pelee, 

 at three ini|)ortant staji;es of the eruj)tions, wliile the nearby cases and 

 jx'destals contain relics of the ruined city of St. Pierre and the dust, 

 stones and bread ci-ust honihs that were thrown out in a white hot or 

 molten conchtion by this volcano and by the Soufriere of St. X'incent. 

 Some 30, ()()() ))e()])le were killed by these outbreaks. Important ^eoloj;ical 

 facts were learned from the observation and subsequent study of the 

 series of events. 



At the nortli end of the hall, tliere is the reproduction of part of a mar- 

 velously beautiful cave that was discovered early in 1910 in the mining 

 operations at the famous Copper Queen mine at Bisbee in the southea.st- 

 ern part of Arizona. The cave was formed by the dissolving action of 

 water traversing joints in limestone, and its walls, roof and })ottom were 

 afterward coated with calcite (calc spar) incrustations, stalactites and 

 stalagmites, some of which are dazzling white while others are colored 

 green with copper salts or pink with manganese compounds. 



The visitor may see the stump and part of the roots of a large tree 



from an anthracite coal mine under Scranton, Pa. Millions 



of years ago, in the geological period known as the Carl)onif- 



erous, this tree grew upon the top of a thick swamp 



dej)()sit of decaying vegetation which ultimately became a most valuable 



bed of coal. The stump was left in the roof of the mine when the coal 



was extracted for commercial and domestic uses. It fell to the floor 



years aft(T the gallery had been a})andoned and was discovercnl only 



through the chance visit of a miner. 



The cases along both sides and down the middh^ of tlu^ hall contain 

 geological and i)ala^ontological spcH'imens. Palaeontology is the science 

 of th(^ ancient life of the earth; its field is the study of the fossilized shells 

 and other hard parts and the various kinds of imprints left b\' the animals 

 formerly inhal)iting the seas and lands, and preserved in deposits which 

 now form our stratified rocks. As normally the upper layers of a series of 

 strata are more recent than the lower, the fossils reveal the succession of 

 life forms in the earth's crust and thus are of the highest value and 

 interest to the stucUuit of historical geology. Since, however, the remains 

 of only a small j^rojiortion of th(^ animals living at a given period are 

 ])ernianently ])reserved in the marine, river, lake and subaerial deposits 

 of that i)eriod, the g(M)logical record of animal and plant forms is far 

 from c()mi)lete. Inasmuch as invertebrate animals are far less free in 

 their movements than the vertebi-ate forms, they are acceptcnl as the best 

 determinants of the licoloiiical a<2;e of a bed of rock, ev<'n when remains of 



