378 Forty-second Report on the State Museum. 



loan of his type specimens of the genus Syringothyris, and from 

 Dr. C. Rominger other specimens of the same genus. These 

 specimens, together with those before possessed, have enabled us 

 to present a very satisfactory illustration of the generic characters 

 of this interesting spiriferoid form. 



The illustrations previously given on plates XXII, XXIII and 

 XXIV, together with the new material constituting plates XXV, 

 XXVI and XXVII, show very clearly the gradual development 

 of certain features, which, beginning in species of the Corniferous 

 limestone, become fully developed in those of the Carboniferous 

 period, constituting the peculiar characteristics of the genus 

 Syringothyris. 



Mr. Thomas A. Greene, of Milwaukee, possesses the most com- 

 plete and remarkable collection of fossils from the Niagara group 

 of Wisconsin and Illinois, known to me in the United States. The 

 collection is preeminently a local one and contains not only great 

 numbers of every species known in the rocks of that region, but 

 they are represented in all varie&es of form and conditions of 

 preservation; and each locality of the region has its specimens 

 especially designated. 



In some instances one or more drawers of two feet square are 

 devoted to the exhibition of a single species. 



I attempted only the examination of the Brachiopoda which are 

 represented in this collection in great numbers* and will at some 

 future day be of the highest importance in the study and illus- 

 tration of the fauna of the Niagara group in its western phases, 

 and especially of the magnesian limestones of that age in Wis- 

 consin and Illinois. 



The species of this class in the western localities are more 

 commonly in the condition of casts of the interior. This collec- 

 tion, however, contains a large number of specimens which pre- 

 serve, in the matrix, the entire interior apparatus of crura, loop, 

 spire, etc., and thus offer the means of obtaining a knowledge of 

 these parts, which can usually only be acquired by careful and 

 tedious manipulation upon favorably preserved specimens. 



Mr. Greene has very kindly loaned to me a large number 

 of illustrative specimens which I selected from his cabinet. 

 These will be of much service and of great interest for the illus- 



*Mr. Greene's collection of Crinoidea and Cystidea and of Cephalopoda from the 

 Western Niagara is of wonderful beauty and magnitude. 



