1870.] 



SENATE— No. 170. 



27 



the rates being the same adopted in our Public Library. This 

 arrangement has proved most satisfactory, the work has been 

 very carefully done, the patience and dexterity being in many 

 cases most commendable. Three students in the College and 

 Museum have been employed in doing the heavier work of 

 cleaning and arranging ; these young men have been able to 

 give only the hours which could be spared from their studies, 

 so that the aggregate labor has not been greater than that of 

 one person continuously employed. The result of this labor 

 has also been very satisfactory. After a good deal of experi- 

 ment the precise means of displaying the specimens has been 

 determined, and one person is now employed in mounting the 

 specimens on the exhibition tablets. It is hoped that during 

 the coming year we may be able to take the final step in the 

 work with a large part of the collection. 



Although but little money has been spent by the Museum, in 

 the purchase or collection of fossils, the additions to the collec- 

 tion have been numerous and important. We acquired by 

 purchase from Dr. Krantz, in Bonn, a very fine collection of 

 fossil insects, from the lithographic slates of Solenhofen and 

 brown coal of the Siebengebirge, most of the specimens being 

 types from which the species were described, by Dr. Hagen and 

 Senator von Heyden. Considerable effort has been made to 

 extend our exchanges. With this intent a printed list of those 

 species of American fossils which we could furnish in quantities 

 for exchange, was sent to most of the scientific institutions and 

 leading naturalists of Europe, with the statement that we would 

 be glad to exchange these or other species, for recent or fossil 

 species, or for works on natural history which might not be 

 contained in our collection or library. Responses to this circu- 

 lar have already begun to arrive, and it will probably do much 

 to extend our intercourse with other institutions. A similar 

 catalogue of European fossils is now being prepared for circula- 

 tion in the United States. About a dozen valuable collections 

 have been received in exchange, in value many times greater 

 than has ever been obtained from this source in any one year 

 before. 



During the past summer the assistant in charge of the 

 department spent two months in making a careful examination 

 of the important deposit of Big Bone Lick, in Kentucky. The 



