26 



REPORT ON PALEONTOLOGY. 



By Alpheus Hyatt. 



During the early part of the present oflBcial year the work of 

 this department was mainly directed to the identification and 

 completion of the arrangement of the Trilobites, which was car- 

 ried far enough to include most of the larger Silurian genera. 

 During the latter part of the year the time was devoted to the 

 selection of specimens for exhibition in the Stratigraphical Col- 

 lection. This last undertaking has proved more difficult than 

 had been anticipated. All the material belonging to the Museum 

 has to be brought together in most groups, and considerable pre- 

 liminary work done in sorting out specimens and identifying the 

 species to which they belong, before the most suitable forms can 

 be made available. Then this material has to be studied more 

 or less in culling out the species characteristic or sufficiently 

 characteristic of the different faunas in the past history of the 

 globe to be used in a stratigraphical collection. Considerable 

 advances have, however, been made in this direction, so far as 

 the MoUusca and Trilobites are concerned. The work of clean- 

 ing and placing the specimens of the old collection of Echino- 

 derms in safe condition has been continued. Similar work has 

 been done for the fossils used by the Assistant in writing his 

 Genera of Fossil Cephalopods," which had never been fully 

 labelled. 



Work on the Gebhard Collection has been continued, and the 

 preliminary labelling of this valuable local collection has been 

 completed. 



The department is indebted to Dr. Robert T. Jackson for 

 voluntary labor upon the Gebhard and Hall Collections. This 

 gentleman has also spent considerable time in the study and ar- 

 rangement of the Lamellibranchs of the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic, 



