REPORT OF THE STATE PALEONTOLOGIST 1899 



G65 



Office work 



Catalogue of type specimens. The type specimens, or those which 

 have served the purpose of description and illustration, constitute 

 a very important part of the wealth of any collection in natural 

 history. It is to such material that scientific students must always 

 have reference in establishing the value of identifications and 

 comparisons, and it therefore has a value never equaled by that of 

 other specimens even though the latter be of superior quality. It 

 has been a matter of frequent statement that many of the original 

 specimens described in the various volumes of the Paleontology 

 of New York are absent from the state museum collections, that 

 such types have gone to other institutions, or that the original 

 material has been lent by various institutions and individuals 

 for the purpose of illustration. These statements are to a certain 

 extent true, and the loaning of specimens must often be the pro- 

 cedure in the execution of any thoroughgoing and complete series 

 of investigations. The paleontologic collections of the museum 

 however contain far more of these types than has been generally 

 supposed or conceded; and, as a careful record of these important 

 specimens has never been kept, I have made it a part of my first 

 work to prepare a complete catalogue of them, in continuation 

 of partial lists prepared by the writer some years ago. This 

 cataloguing, which involves a record of the place in which each 

 type specimen has been described and illustrated, has gone for- 

 ward with reasonable rapidity, and is already sufficiently ad- 

 vanced to show that within the organic groups, crustaceans, 

 annelids, cephalopods and brachiopods, the collections contain 

 about 2300 types. On the completion and perfection of this cata- 

 logue, it is my purpose to offer it for publication as a permanent 

 record, as has been done in other scientific museums. 



Electrotyping. In addition to the original specimens them- 

 selves, the collections contain a considerable number of replicas 

 of type specimens in plaster of paris and gutta-percha. Exper- 

 ience has shown that such replicas become injured or destroyed in 

 course of time, and it has therefore seemed wise to adopt means 



