Book Reviews

Abstract

ABOUT 1838, Louis Agassiz had assembled in Neuchatel specimens of fossil sea-urchins borrowed from various public and private collections to aid him in his “Monographies d'échinodermes”. Many of these specimens became the types of his new species; all were authenticated; and he con ceived the happy idea of making plaster moulds from them and of distributing the casts to museums or students interested in the subject. After Agassiz left Neuchâtel, the good work was con tinued by E. Desor and later by H. Michelin, down to about 1858, when the number of species thus represented amounted to 960. A second edition of the casts was begun in 1854 by L. Coulon, who had succeeded to the direction of the Neuchâtel Museum. It is to be feared that after a time in many museums these valuable documents of research, having become dusty, lost the respect of a new generation of curators and were not kept in order. Even at Neuchâtel itself, the present director “found the casts piled up at random in two large boxes and sometimes spoiled”. Denkschriften der Schweizerischen Naturforschenden Gesellschaft (Mémoires de la Société Helvétique des Sciences Naturelles). Band 64, Abh. 2: Nouveau catalogue des monies d'échinides fossiles du Musée d'Histoire naturelle de Neuchâtel. Exécuté sous la direction de L. Agassiz et E. Desor par J. Lambert et A. Jeannet. Pp. ii + 83-233 + 2 planches. (Zürich: Gebrüder Fretz A.-G., 1928.)