ii8 The American Geologist. August, looi 
The department has for many years been the depository of 
miscellaneous collections of fossil plants made by various ex- 
ploring expeditions and geological surveys, but it was not un- 
til 1892 that the paleobotanical series became of sufficient im- 
portance to merit consideration among the great collections of 
the world, in this year, the late Mr. R. D. Lacoe gave to the 
government his entire collection of fossil plants, a collection 
tne value of which has been partially made known to the .sci- 
entific world through Lesquereux's Coal Flora, of the second 
geological survey of Pennsylvania. This collection is esti- 
mated to contain, all told, not less than 100,000 specimens, of 
which 575 are original types. 
In addition, there are the collections described in Lesquer- 
eux's Cretaceous and Tertiary Flora, vol. VHI. of the report 
of the Hayden Survey, and his Flora of the Dakota group, 
monograph 17 of the present U. S. Geological Survey, and in 
Fontaine's Mesozoic Flora of North America, monographs 6 
and 15, U. S. Geological Survey; Newberry's Later Extinct 
Flora of North America, monograph 35, U. S. Geological Sur- 
vey ; White's Fossil Flora of the Lower Coal Measures, mono- 
graph T,y, v. S. Geological Survey, and others of less impor- 
tance. It is easy to see, therefore, that the collection is by far 
the largest and most valuable of its kind in .America, and per- 
haps in the world. It contains altogether not less than 2,000 
types and figured specimens. 
The view here given (plate xiii) from the annual report of 
the Museum for 1900, shows the gallery of the Museum de- 
voted to the storage of the study series of fossil plants. The 
section has here some 1,900 drawers, giving an area of 10,000 
square feet of storage space. The table cases around the outer 
edge of the gallery serve as convenient tables for the laying 
out of material for study. 
The question as to what extent it is proposed to carry the 
exhibition series in the Museum is an important one. The 
present feeling on the part of the officers of the various depart- 
ments, is that a practical limit is very quickly reached. A com- 
paratively small number of well-selected, well-preserved, typ- 
ical forms, properly labeled and so installed as to attract atten- 
tion and at the same time convey an idea, are recognized as 
of greater value than dozens of specimens of poorer materials 
