>-*- -s ^A -^ UniYersity of the State of Ne-w York NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM Forty-third Annual Report OF THE REGENTS For the Year 1889 TRANSMITTED TO THE LEGISLATURE MARCH 2;5, 180O ALBANY JAMES B. LYON, STATE PRINTER 1890 CONTENTS PAGE Regents of theUniversity 5 Standing committee on State museum 6 State museum staff 6 Report of the regents to the legislature 7 Report of Assistant-in-charge 9 Additions to collections and library 1 Zoology 21 2 Mineralogy and economic geology 29 3 Geology and paleontology 34 4 Ethnology 36 5 Library 37 Report of State Botanist 49 Report of State Entomologist 99 Report of State Geologist '. 207 REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM [The Laws of 1889, eh. 529, made the State Library and State Museum departments of the University.] GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, LL. D., Chancellor ANSON J. UPSON, D. D., LL.D.. Vice-Clamcellor DAYID B. HILL, Guvernor ..-..} I EDWARD F. JONES, LieiUenant-Govei'nor Ex qpicio FRANK RICE, Secretary of State - - - - ANDREW S. DRAPER, Sup't of Public Instruction In order of election by the legislature GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, LL.D., 18Gi - West ?few Brighton FRANCIS KERNAN, LL.D., 1870 ------- Utica MARTIN I. TOWNSEND, LL.D., 1873 --..-. Troy ANSON J. UPSON, D.D., LL.D., 1874 Glens FaUs WILLIAM L. BOSTWICK, 1876 Ithaca CH-4UNCEY M. DEPEW, LL.D., 1877 ----- New York CHARLES E. FITCH, 1877 -------- Rochester ORRIS H. WARREN, D.D., 1877 Syracuse LESLIE W. RUSSELL, LL.D., 1878 New York WHITELAW REID, 1878 -.-----. New York WILLIAM H. WATSON, M.D., 1881 - Utica HENRY E. TURNER, 1881 -------- LowAnlle St. CLAIR M( KELWAY, 1883 Brooklyn ' HAMILTON HARRIS, 1885 - Albany DANIEL BEACH, LL.D., 1885 Watkins WILL-\RD A. COBB, 1886 - - - Lockport CARROLL E. SMITH, 1888 -------- Syracuse PLINY T. SEXTON, 1890 Palmyra T. GUILFORD SMITH, 1890 - - Buffalo MELVIL DEWEY. M. A., Secretary Albany ALBERT B. W-\TKINS, Ph. D., Assistant Secretary - Albany Standing Committee of the Regents on the State Museiim ANDREW S. DRAPER, SupH of Public Instruction, Chairman Regents KERNAN, HARRIS, BEACH AND 0. E. SMITH State Museum Staff JAMES HALL, M. A. (Rensselaer Polytechnic), LL. D. (Harvard) Director, State Geologist and Paleontologist CHARLES H, PECK, M. A. (Union) .... state Botanist J. A. LINTNER, Ph. D. - State Entomologist JOHN C. SMOCK, M. A. (Rutgers), Ph.D. (Lafayette), Economic Geologist JOHN M. CLARKE, M. A, (Amherst) - - Assistant Paleontologist WILLIAM B. MARSHALL, M. S. (Lafayette) - - Assistant Zoologist PHILIP AST Lithographer MARTIN SHEEHEY Messenger JACOB VAN DELOO Clerk : State of New York No. 51 IN sknate: March 25, 1890 FORTY-THIRD ANNUAL REPORT NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM To the Legislature of the state of New York I have the honor to submit herewith, pursuant to law, the 43d annual report of the Regents of the University on the New York State Museum. aEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS Chancellor STATE MUSEUM N ATU RAL H I STO RY. Report of Assistant in Charge. : REPORT OF THE ASSISTANT IN CHARGE. James Hall, LL. D., Director of the Neiu York State Museum of Natural History Sir.— I transmit Herewith my report as Assistant-in-charge of the New York State Museum, for the year ending December 1, 1889. Respectfully. JOHN C. SMOCK Albany, December 1, 1889. Current Work. The general care of the Museum, including the ordinary office work with its correspondence, the preparation of the bulletin on iron ores and the examination and selection of material for a second bulletin on building stone in the State, have occupied the larger part of my time. There is an increasing number of calls and of requests by letter for information relative to minerals of economic importance which may occur in the State. They are time-consuming, as they require, in many cases, correspondence, in order to get the requisite facts or careful examination of reports, since it is impossible to acquire at once a personal knowledge of all the localities of the occurrence of these mineral staples in the State;. The value of the Museum to the people and its return to them for their support of it, is felt to be so great as to warrant the time thus given to all who come to it for help. It is, in fact, a geological bureau, and is thus engaged in the instruction of the people. Leave of absence was granted me for two months to visit the glaciers of British Columbia and Alaska. Shortly after this action by the Board of Eegents, I started, passing through Ottawa, in Canada and availing myself of the advantages of seeing the Museum of the Canadian Geological Survey, e)i route west. The lUecellewaet glacier, near Glacier Sta., in British Columbia, was visited first. An attempt was made to explore the glaciers on 12 Forty-third Annual Report on the Mt. Tacoma, Wasliiugton, but tlie season was so unfavorable by- reason of forest fires and smoke that it was abandoned. In the Alaska trip the Muir glacier was visited, the glaciers in Taku inlet, and the Davidson glacier, in Lynn canal, and many smaller glaciers were seen from the ship's deck. The results of the trip were instructive and suggestive of application in the full interj^re- tation of glacial phenomena in New York, particularly in the Catskill mountain region and in the Adirondack mountains. And the field work, another season, in studying our glacial formations, will have its problems solved by the aid of knowledge acquired on the Pacific slope. During the latter part of the autumn I have visited the prin- cipal cities of the State and have collected statistics of the use of stone in building and in street work, and have obtained from architects and stone dealers much valuable data about the sources, durability, cost and comparative advantages or defects of the stone used in these cities. Dr. Chas. E. Beecher retains his position on the Museum staff, as Assistant and Consulting Palaeontologist. In the summer he visited Wyoming and South Dakota and secured for the Museum some valuable fossils, minerals and stone implements. He visited Louisville and examined the Nettleroth collection and reported on it. He has examined several other and smaller collections which were offered at sale. His most import- ant service is a paper on the " Development of Some Silurian Brachiopoda," and published as Memoir No. 1. Mr. John M. Clarke, Assistant State Palaeontologist, was conjointly with him author of this paper. Wm. B. Marshall, Assistant in Zoology, has charge of the department of Zoology and the care of its collections. He has given much time to their rearrangement and to the general improvement of the exhibition of the material on the top floor of the Museum. He has relabeled the birds, following the order in ; Ridgway's " Manual of North American Birds " mounted the Beecher collection of shells ; and rearranged nearly all of the col- lections in the room. A study of the Unionidse of Albany county has yielded some valuable data concerning the markings on the beaks of these fresh-water shells, and important generalizations have been drawn therefrom, which he has brought together in a paper, to be published as a Museum bulletin. The records of ; State Museum of Natural History. 13 accessions have been kept by him ; and the general clerical work of the Museum has taken much of his time and he has been in charge during my absence. Martin Sheehy has been employed in the laboratory making transparent and microscopic sections and also as general helper in all of the departments of the Museum. The rapidity with which rock sections are now cut, by new diamond saws, constructed by him, reduces the time greatly and increases the capacity of the laboratory. On account of the many calls for his help in the work of museum exhibition, the actual output is less than formerly. Sections for the study of fossil shell structure by the State Palaeontologist have been made ; and many of building stones for the department of economic geology. Arrangement and Accessions. Mineralogical Collections. The mineralogical rooms on the principal floor of the Museum remain essentially as their arrangement was reported for 1888. The general collection is exliibited in these rooms and in wall cases and table cases. The system of Dana's mineralogy is fol- lowed, in the arrangment in the wall cases, Nos. 1-26, inclusive in case 27, the Emmons collection of calcites from Rossie, St. Law- rence county, is exhibited. In case 28, the petroleum collection, received from Professor John J. Stevenson, of New York city, is arranged. The more valuable and better crystallized speci- mens of nearly all of the mineral species represented in the general collection, occupy a table case in the front room. The Bergen Hill minerals fill a case in the rear room. The col- lection of gems and cut stones are shown in a case in the same room, placed in the front of a window so as to be well lighted. In another window-case in this room a large mass of green fluor spar from Macomb, St. Lawrence county is on exhibition. A new table-case has been placed in the front room and in it is displayed the beautiful collection of ornamental marbles and serpentines, the gift of Messrs. S. Klaber & Co., of 47 "West Forty- second street. New York. It consists of forty-four dressed and polished blocks, representing the most valued and best known marbles and serpentines for ornamental work from Algeria, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Great Britain, Mexico and our own country. There are in the collection two marbles from New 14 FoRTY-THITtB ANNUAL REPORT ON TUB York quarries.