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the largest that has ever been brought together from this source. A species of peculiar interest is named Ptyctodus howlandi in recognition of help and encouragement given, during the preparation of this important work, by Mr. Henry R. Howland of the Buffalo Museum.

Number I of Volume XIII (pp. 23 with 18 plates), is on the "Structure of Eusthenopteron"; by W. L. BRYANT.

6. Guide to the Mineral Collections in the Illinois State Museum; by A. R. CROOK. Pp. 294, with 31 plates and 236 text figures. This is an interesting account of the Collections in the State Museum, numbering nearly 1300 specimens. Numerous illustrations are given, those in half-tone and in color being particularly noteworthy. The volume will be useful not only to those visiting the Museum, but also because of the fullness of its general descriptions to students of minerology.

III. MISCELLANEOUS SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE.

1. Report of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, CHARLES D. WALCOTT, for the year ending June 30, 1920.—The Secretary states that the total funds of the Institution now amount to $1,083,000 and that the income available for the year was $174,000. Notwithstanding the special funds that have been added since the original gift from James Smithson in 1826, the income at present is quite too small to permit of the work being carried on as liberally as formerly, because of the greatly increased costs. However, the researches and explorations for the year have been very varied in subject and locality, not the least important being the work of the Secretary himself in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. It is interesting to note that the National Gallery of Arts is in future to be a separate unit under the Institution with Mr. W. H. Holmes as Director. The building, provided by the $1,000,000 given by Mr. Charles L. Freer of Detroit, is now nearly completed and practically ready for the installation of the collections. It is much to be regretted that Mr. Freer did not live to see his generous gift to the Nation put in permanent form. The International Exchange Service has increased largely, the number of packages handled during the year being nearly 370,000, weighing about 500,000 pounds. Although several countries are not included in the exchange list, the total number exceeds that of 1914 by over 27,000. The National Museum has acquired about 217,000 specimens, nearly half of these being in zoology. The Museum is now in charge of Mr. W. deC. Ravenel. Mr. Abbot, director of the Astrophysical Observatory, notes the practical completion of volume IV of the Annals. He also mentions the fact that the results for the solar variation for 1917 and 1918 obtained at Mt. Wilson and at Calama, Chile, 4,000 miles apart, agreed very closely. Through

the generosity of Mr. John A. Roebling, funds have been provided for the removal of the Chile Station to a mountain above its former location, thus giving a clear atmosphere, and, in addition, for a building on the Harqua Hala Mts. in Arizona.

Separate volumes, received recently, are the following:

Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for the year ending June 30, 1918. Pp. 612, with 54 plates. The report of the Secretary, herein contained, has been already noticed.

Report on the Progress and Condition of the United States National Museum for the year ending June 30, 1919. Pp. 211, with 7 plates.

Several Bulletins of the Bureau of American Ethnology.

Publications of the Allegheny Observatory of the University of Pittsburgh; FRANK SCHLESINGER, director.-Publications recently received are as follows: Nos. 2-5 of volume 4 (1919) containing photographic determinations of the parallaxes of 135 stars with the Thaw refractor (185 stars for the entire volume). Also Nos. 1-5 of volume 5 on the same subject. Nos. 1-3 of volume 6 are on the following subjects: the irregularities in refraction (1); the effect of atmospheric dispersion on photographs taken with the Thaw telescope (2); solar and terrestrial absorption in the sun's spectrum from 6500 A to 9000 A (3).

OBITUARY.

DR. MAX MARGULES, formerly of the Austrian Meteorological Service, died on October 4 at the age of sixty-four years.

DR. KARL HERMANN STRUVE, in 1895 made professor of astronomy at Königsberg and later director of the Berlin-Babelsberg observatory, died on August 12 at the age of sixty-six years.

PROFESSOR YVES DELAGE, the eminent French zoologist, died on October 8 at the age of sixty-six years.

THE

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE

[FIFTH SERIES.]

ART. VII.-The Cretaceous Armored Dinosaur, Nodosaurus textilis Marsh; by RICHARD SWANN LULL. With Plates I to IV.

[Contributions from the Othniel Charles Marsh Publication Fund, Peabody Museum, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.]

Introduction.

History of discovery.

Extent of material.

Original description.

Morphology.

Endoskeleton.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Pre-sacral vertebræ and ribs.

Pelvis.

Caudal vertebræ.

Fore limb.

Hind limb.

Exoskeleton.

Armor.

Taxonomy and relationships.

Family characteristics.

Re-definition of Nodosaurus Marsh.
Relationships with other genera.

INTRODUCTION.

The "paleontologic revival" at Yale has as its first fruits the naming and description of new species out of old specimens in the Marsh Collection, some of which have awaited recognition for nearly half a century since they were exhumed. Incidentally there remains the other task of redescribing, in the light of further preparation and of greater opportunity for comparative study, such type material as had already had the scientific recognition of the master. Of such is the type of Nodosaurus, the importance of which is manifest when it is realized that it is not only a generic and specific type, but that of AM. JOUR. SCI.-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. I, No. 2.-FEBRUARY, 1921.

the family of American plated dinosaurs, and was, moreover, essentially the first of these remarkable reptiles to be described in American literature of science. The preparation of the skeleton has been an arduous task, as it was sent in from the field in the form of shattered, bonecontaining fragments of one or more great concretions. The only possible mode of procedure was to fit together these fragments and then, after pouring plaster into every bone impression in the rock where the osseous tissue had been eroded away, to hew the matrix from both the contained bone and the plaster continuation thereof. In this way, through weeks of patient toil, the creature has been revealed, and while by no means complete, will enhance very materially our present knowledge of these forms. Stegosaurus, although difficult to understand, is of course well known, owing to the researches of Marsh, Gilmore, and the writer, but it represents an aberrant side branch of the Stegosauria, and is early extinct (Morrison time), while Nodosaurus and its allies are in many respects more conservative and trace their lineage from the Lower Jurassic Scelidosaurus to Ankylosaurus of the Lance-almost the entire length of recorded predentate dinosaurian history.

Aiding in the work of preparation were F. W. Darby, a preparator of high skill and long service, Edward L. Troxell, associate on the research staff of the Peabody Museum, and others. I am also indebted to W. D. Matthew and Barnum Brown of the American Museum of Natural History for photographs and the privilege of studying the Ankylosaurus specimens collected by the latter; to Charles W. Gilmore of the United States National Museum for photographs and criticism; and to our lamented colleague, S. W. Williston, for the loan of the type specimen of Stegopelta. Mr. Kirkham of Yale aided in certain interpretations for which my knowledge was insufficient, while Professor Schuchert and Miss LeVene have as usual given their very real aid to the undertaking.

History of discovery.-When the veteran collector, William H. Reed, was working for Professor Marsh in 1881, searching for mammals and reptiles in the Morrison strata on the western slope of Como Bluff, Wyoming, he happened to discover the dinosaur which Marsh later described as Nodosaurus textilis. The specimen was found about 11⁄2 miles east and south of the famous

Quarry 13 which was so highly productive of dinosaurian life (Gilmore 1914, pp. 2-24), and as it lay on the easterly slope of the Como anticline was therefore considerably above the Morrison stratigraphically. The label bears the statement "400 feet above the Dacota sandstone" in Professor Marsh's handwriting, while Reed's letter of July 17, 1881, says: "I found a saurian today in the Cretaceous between the Dacota rocks and the shale above them." This would bring it within the limit of the Benton sands and therefore in marine deposits, a not infrequent occurrence with the plated dinosaurs. The specimen lay in one or more concretions of dense bluish limestone which is extremely difficult to distinguish in some instances from the bone itself. The material was collected in fragments and its reconstruction has been a three-dimensional puzzle of great difficulty, especially as all of the pieces are evidently not preserved. Reed himself says in a letter dated July 12, 1882: "It is not very good and all in concretions so I could make no diagram of it."

Extent of Material. The material as now prepared (1920) consists, first, of the pelvis, including the armoredover sacrum with the well preserved ilia attached. What appear to be the spinal ends of the scapulæ are also present, together with a detached mass containing portions of at least three imperfect vertebræ with their attached ribs and overlying armor. Yet another large piece contains a number of ribs with the highly nodular overlying armor. There is, however, no present connection between this and the other masses. Thirteen caudal vertebræ are also present. Of the appendicular skeleton, one approximately complete left femur is preserved, and parts of the other, the left tibia, and part of the fibula, a considerable portion of the right tibia, together with an almost complete left hind foot. Of the fore limbs, fragments of the humeri are present, together with the incomplete left radius and ulna, and portions of the fore foot. There are also a number of detached dermal elements.

The specimen bears the catalogue number 1815, 1815a, and 1815b Y. P. M., but there is no reason to suppose it to be other than one individual, and the number 1815 only will be used hereafter.

Original description.-Marsh (1889, p. 175) thus describes the animal:

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