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3-5-03


A NEW SPECIES OF COTTON FROM A CLIFF HOUSE IN UTAH.


In one of the collections gathered by the Hyde Expedition for this Museum there has been found a species of cotton hitherto unknown to science.

This collection was made by the Wetherill brothers in 1894-95. The greater part of the material is from caves and cliff houses of the Grand Gulch region of Southeastern Utah and many new and interesting objects have been discovered in the course of re-numbering and cataloging [[strikethrough]]and re-assorting[[/stikethrough]].

Probably the most interesting discovery to scientists in general is a number of cotton bolls that were found in a corrugated jar that rested against the head of a skeleton of a "Mound Dweller".

This jar is from one of the numerous mounds of the "Mesa Ruins," as they are termed by one of the Wethereills, in the Grand Gulch country of Utah.  In the jar were over sixty carpels, or seed bearing sections of of bolls, some of which contained cotton, also small ears of corn, seeds, cotton cloth, arrow points, iron ore, and pebbles. 

Samples of this cotton were sent to Professor C.F. Millspaugh of the Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, for study: the results of his investigations are embodied in the following letter:-

"The cotton from jar 175 does not correspond to any known species.  I have described it under the name: Cossypium aborigineum as a new species and probably the progenitor of our tropic American C. Arboreum." 

Professor Millspaugh is preparing a technical description of this new species which will appear in one of the botanical journals.

Transcription Notes:
C.F Millspaugh = botanist Charles Frederick Millspaugh