THE MUSEUM'S FIELD WORK IN COLOMBIA

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from Alta Mira in the Magdalena Valley, to Florencia in Caquetá, on the headwaters of Amazonian drainage. The inaccessibility of this region has made it one of the least-known parts of South America, but it can now be reached over a recently constructed government road. Thirty days were passed in the vast forests about Florencia, which is at an altitude of only six hundred feet. It was the height of the rainy season but in spite of the heat and excessive humidity, Mr. Miller collected and preserved some eight hundred birds and mammals, practically none of which are represented in our previous Colombian collections. Forty-five days were required for the journey to New York where Mr. Miller arrived September 9, after eighteen months of continuous field work.

It is still too early to speak at length of the major results obtained by our work in Colombia, but it is obvious as study of the collections progresses, that we are in possession of data of high importance in its bearing not only on the origin of life in Colombia, but also on the origin of life in tropical America. Incidentally the expedition has secured a surprisingly large number of new and rare species. We have found, for example, that a certain duck (Aythya nationi) previously known from only two specimens, is a common bird in the Cauca Valley, and our series of fifteen beautifully prepared skins enables us to show the close relationships of this bird with Aythya brunnea of South Africa.

At least one-fourth of the birds collected were not before contained in our Museum and many of these are new to American museums, while of those new to science a beautiful little parrot from near the crest of the Central Andes proves to be a link connecting other forms of its group. It has been named Pionopsitta fuertesi, in honor of Louis Agassiz Fuertes, foremost painter of birds, and a member of the reconnaissance party which planned the Colombian expedition route.

There are also two new ant-thrushes which have been named respectively Grallaria alleni and Grallaria milleri, in honor of the men who have rendered the Museum such excellent service at no small personal risk; new creepers, flycatchers, wrens, thrushes, finches, warblers, grosbeaks and tanagers, whose discovery shows how rich is the field awaiting the zoological explorer in South America.

We should not fail to explain that the success we have met with in Colombia has been due not to the energy of our own representatives alone, but in no small measure to the courtesy and coöperation of the Colombians who, whether as officials or individuals, have invariably honored our calls for information and assistance, and have frequently extended hospitalities which greatly increased the efficiency of the expedition.

Our plans for the future include a biological survey of the Bogotá region, to be followed by explorations in that little-known territory to the east in which upper branches of both the Orinoco and the Amazon have their

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By Edmund Otis Hovey

HE department of geology has received from Mr. Grant B. Schley, president of the El Potosi Mining Company, a series of remarkable specimens of calcite and aragonite (carbonates of lime) and selenite (sulphate of lime) from a cave in the company's mine near the city of Chihuahua, Mexico. This cave consists of a series of chambers in massive limestone and was broken into in the course of ordinary mining operations. The rooms are on several levels and are of different heights, although there are none with ceilings very lofty.

The calcite and aragonite show some most delicate tints water white and snow white, rose, salmon color, light lemon and sulphur yellow.

Delicate

One of the chambers of the cave discovered in a mine near Chihuahua. and fantastic crystals from this cave are on exhibition in the hall of historic geology The selenite or gypsum occurs in transparent, colorless crystals and crystallized aggregates, and as thick mats of long slender crystals resting like glistening snow upon curiously distorted helictites of the carbonate of lime. Radiating arrow heads of calcite are grouped together in some of the specimens and blunt crystals in others, but the most showy group of all consists of slightly salmon-colored, double-pointed two-inch crystals of dogtooth spar forming a flat mass more than thirty inches across.

Unfortunately for science and the public, the cave contains a large amount of valuable silver lead ore in its walls and floor and is now in process of demolition for the winning of the precious minerals.

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NEW DINOSAURS FOR THE AMERICAN MUSEUM

By W. D. Matthew

OR the past three summers the Museum has had an expedition in Alberta, Canada, searching for dinosaurs in the Cretaceous formations of the Red Deer River. This expedition in charge of Mr. Barnum Brown, associate curator of fossil reptiles, has secured a fine series of specimens including a number of more or less complete skeletons of dinosaurs, some of them new, others related to the Cretaceous dinosaurs of Wyoming and Montana. The collection is already large and will be doubled by the results of this season's work; its preparation and study will not be completed for some time to come. The specimens of the following list have been placed on exhibition on the fourth floor in the case opposite the elevator.

1. Albertosaurus skull, hind limb and part of tail. This was a great carnivorous dinosaur related to the Tyrannosaurus and more distantly to the Allosaurus and intermediate between the two in size.

2. Small ceratopsian (new). This is related to the huge horned dinosaurs, but is quite a small animal. A fragmentary skeleton was secured of which the fore limb and tail have been placed on exhibition, the rest being very much broken up.

3. Crested dinosaur Sauralophus (new). A complete articulated skeleton, of which the skull and jaws are placed on exhibition. It is related to the duck-bill dinosaurs but had a crest along the back and a great bony spine at the back of the skull.

4.

Skulls and end of tail of armored dinosaurs. These are perhaps the most remarkable of Mr. Brown's discoveries. The whole body was covered with heavy armor-plates, consolidated on the skull and the tip of the tail into a solid bony mass. This group of dinosaurs has become known to science only within the last few years, chiefly through Mr. Brown's explorations and studies. The specimens secured will probably enable us to restore the entire skeleton of the largest of the group, Ankylosaurus.

The novel methods adopted by Mr. Brown to explore this formation were outlined by him in the JOURNAL for December, 1911. The friendly attitude of the Canadian Geological Survey, to whose field parties we owe our first knowledge of the fossil riches of this territory, has been of material assistance.

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A PEOPLE'S MUSEUM OF EUROPE

By Walter Granger

F the natural history museums of Europe there is one which should be of especial interest to members and friends of the American Museum, because in the relations existing between the museum and the public it seems more nearly to approach our own than any other institution of its kind. This is the Museum of the Senckenberg Natural History Society of Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany. In some respects it is unique among natural history museums. The American Museum, like the British Museum and our National Museum, has a two-fold object, scientific research and public instruction. University museums here and

abroad are chiefly for research and the special instruction of students, but the Senckenberg Museum has for its chief object the instruction of the public in natural history, first by popular lectures given in properly arranged courses by members of the staff, second by carefully selected, well arranged and well labeled specimens in the exhibition halls.

The Senckenberg Society is an old one, but their museum, in its present quarters, dates only from 1907. This new building embodies new ideas in the arrangement of exhibition halls, in lighting, in the construction of cases and in the equipment of its lecture halls and laboratories. In the exhibits unnecessary duplication is avoided and a strong effort is made to illustrate all of the more important and interesting groups of animal life by at least one choice example. For instance in the great central court is an original skeleton of the herbivorous dinosaur Diplodocus obtained from the American Museum through the late President Jesup, a skull of the horned dinosaur Triceratops purchased from an American collector and the skeleton of the Whitfield mastodon obtained from this Museum. The Senckenberg Museum is also ambitious in the matter of habitat groups and already two very large and elaborate ones have been installed. One represents two phases of African mammalian life, the two groups of animals each dominated by an adult giraffe, being arranged on opposite sides of the case yet the whole being so blended as to present a single picture. The second group is of the Arctic regions and the animals include the walrus, polar bear Arctic fox and hare.

Frankfurt is famous for the civic pride displayed by its inhabitants and the museum is fortunate in having many wealthy friends who contribute generously toward its development. Perhaps the most interesting and unusual feature of this museum however, is the hearty and earnest coöperation of the public in the actual work of the museum. Many young men and women of the city, some of them students in science and all interested in natural history, come to the museum during free hours and may be seen scattered through the laboratories engaged in the preparation of specimens, in labeling, cataloging and arranging collections, in the preparation of charts as illustrations for the lectures, and in various kinds of work connected with a museum, under the supervision of the regular staff of course, and all without pay. In this manner the workers acquire much knowledge which could be gained in no other way and the museum obtains services for which it would otherwise be obliged to hire assistants. Both the directors of the museum and the public take particular pride in this coöperation.

It was gratifying to learn that the methods of exhibition and instruction in general in our Museum, through the agency of the JOURNAL and the Guide Leaflets, are closely studied by the directors of the Frankfurt Museum, and it may be said in return that their splendid institution has many suggestions to offer to the American Museum and others.

MUSEUM NOTES

SINCE the last issue of the JOURNAL the following persons have been elected to membership in the Museum:

Life Members, MESSRS. CLARENCE H. EAGLE, C. H. RUDDOCK and JOHN G. WORTH;

Annual Members, BARONESS RAOUL DE GRAFFENRIED, MRS. GORHAM BACON, MRS. WILLIAM E. BOND, MRS. GEORGE W. BURLEIGH, MRS. WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER, MRS. GEORGE E. CHISOLM, MRS. SIDNEY J. JENNINGS, MRS. MINNIE A. McBARRON, MRS. ABRAM N. STEIN, MRS. JAMES R. WHITING, MRS. C. R. WOODIN, MISS ANNA BOGERT, MISS THEODATE POPE, MISS MARY F. REUTER, REV. FRANCIS ROLT-Wheeler, Dr. E. B. BRONSON, DR. ETHAN FLAGG BUTLER, DR. GEORGE W. CRILE, DR. FRANK OVERTON and MESSRS. S. REED ANTHONY, CLINTON T. BISSELL, GEORGE WHITEFIELD BLOOD, STANLEY D. BROWN, BELMORE BROWNE, FREDERICK H. CLARKE, EDWIN CORNING, EUGENE DELANO, Jr., GUY DU VAL, WILLIAM CROWNINSHIELD ENDICOTT, WILLIAM FLOYD, JOHN H. INMAN, WILLIAM FORREST KEYES, ALBERT M. LILIENTHAL, EDWARD LINDSEY, W. S. MCCREA, M. MACK, W. N. MCMILLAN, W. FORBES MORGAN, JR., JOHN M. PHILLIPS, ALBERT HOUGHTON PRATT, H. S. PUTNAM, GEORGE W. ROGERS, MORGAN R. ROSS, BENJAMIN F. SEAVER, LOUIS AGASSIZ SHAW, THEODORE A. SIMON, CHARLES WILSON TAINTOR, HARRY W. THEDFORD, J. V. VAN SANTVOORD, FREDERICK B. VAN VORST and AMASA WALKER.

PRESIDENT HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN has just returned to the Museum from a tour through northern Italy, France and northwestern Spain. He visited several museums, including the Natural History Museum of Toulouse and the Musée Océanographique of Monaco, the latter forming the model for the new oceanographic hall of the American Museum.

The chief feature of his journey was the inspection of Upper Palæolithic caverns, those of the Pyrenees with Professor Emile Cartailhac, of the Dordogne with L'Abbé Henri Breuil, and of northwestern Spain with Professor Hugo Obermaier. In the French caverns he was accompanied by Professor George G. MacCurdy of Yale University, who is representing the American Museum in the Palæolithic of Europe. At the invitation of Comte Begouen of Toulouse, President Osborn and Professor MacCurdy joined the first party to enter the newly discovered cavern known as Tuc d'Audoubert, which contains more than fifty drawings of the mammals of Upper Palæolithic times. In this tour all the principal caverns and stations of the Upper Paleolithic were visited, and through the courtesy of the leading French anthropologists who conducted these journeys important arrangements were made for the development of the American Museum collections. An archaic stone carving of the horse of Aurignacian age was secured for the Museum as well as a great collection of Palæolithic flints.