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UNIVERSITY MUSEUM LOCATES LOST FOSSILS

Finds Mislaid Types in Nook of Boston Institution--To Cooperate With German Scientists

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Through a recent request from the Museum of Stuttgart, Germany, asking for cooperation in locating several type fossils of the Miocene age., the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology has just located the fossils, which have been lying in an obscure corner of the museum of the Boston Society of Natural History, since they were overlooked when the rest of the Eser collection, which contained the types, was brought to the University ten years ago.

The Stuttgart museum wrote to the University because of a request it had received from the University of Paris, which is making a study of the Miocene fish, and wished to have the type fossils which Finanrath Eser of Stuttgart had collected near Wurtemberg, Germany.

These fossils have been taken as the basis for definition of several fish of the Miocene Age, which may be roughly taken as four million years ago, geologists assert.

Because the Eser fossils were acquired by the Boston Society of Natural. History in 1873, and subsequently presented to the University museum, the Stuttgart museum wrote to the University asking for either the loan of the fossils, or photographs. A search of the University museum failed to discover the particular type fossils requested, and it was only after a long search that the lost types were found in an obscure corner of the Boston Society museum.

The fossils are at present being remounted, and all possible cooperation will be given the University of Paris in its study of the ancient fish.

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