Bulletin - United States National Museum - Smithsonian Institution

PREFACE.
Since 19vU the junior author of this article has devoted much
time to the accumulation of Tertiary bryozoa, particular attention
being paid to material of this age from American localities. The
object of these efforts lay in the hope that sooner or later an opportunity
might be offered to monogi-aph the subject. In the meantime
the value of the bryozoa for purposes of stratigraphic correlation was
recognized and this fact secured the active cooperation of several
members of the United States Geological Survey, notably Dr. T.
Wayland Vaughan. The collections resulting from these combined
efforts proved so large and numerous that it soon became evident
one person alone could not complete their study in a reasonable
length of time. Besides the intimate relationship of the Tertiary
bryozoa with the living forms required a good Imowledge of the
taxonomy and anatomy of the recent species on the part of the
student who attempted the description of the fossil forms. Fortu-
nately for the writer, Ferdinand Canu, of Versailles, France, well
known for his extensive and accurate work on Mesozoic, Cenozoic,
and Recent bryozoa, very kindly consented, in 1912, to join him in the
study of the American Cenozoic faunas, with the result that now,
after four years of work interrupted only by exigencies arising from
the great war, a monograph of nearly five hundred species of Lower
Tertiary Cheilostomata has been completed. As the publication of
this monograph will of necessity be slow, it has been thought advis-
able to precede it with the following brief synopsis of the classifica-
tion with description of the new genera and their genotypes.
R. S. Bassler.
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