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[[preprinted letterhead]]
S. L. Patterson
Commissioner of Agriculture and Immigration.
T. K. Bruner, Secretary.
State Chemist.
H.H. Brimley, Curator State Museum.

North Carolina Department of Agriculture
Raleigh.

Tait Butler, State Veterinarian
Franklin Sherman, State Entomologist
Gerald McCarthy, Botanist and Biologist
W. N. Hutt, Horticulturalist.

Brandan Printing Co. Nashville

[[/preprinted letterhead]]
[[typed in purple ink]]

April 18, 1908.

^[[Arrd Apr 28]]

Dear Doctor True:
I have your favor of the 17th inst. Regarding fossil cetaceans from this State I would say that we have a few specimens in the Museum that were here before I took charge and of which the identity is somewhat uncertain. In Kerrs Geology of North Carolina, Vol. 1, appears a description of a new species, Mesoterus Kerrianus. Cope, and of that we have (or, rather, I [[underlined]] think [[/underlined]] these specimens refer to this species) a basal piece of one mandible and two or three vertebrae. I am under the impression that the larger fragments from which this specimen was identified were sent to the Nat^[[i]]onal museum by my predecessor, Thos. C. Harris, about 1894. We have thre^[[e]] other vertebrae that I think are those described by Cope on page 49 of Appendix B, of the above mentioned work.
[[vertical pencil line in left margin]]
Previous to my connection with the Museum in 1895 there was quite a large and varied collection of fossils in the Museum but from lack of care and cataloguing most of the labels had been either
[[/vertical pencil line in left margin]]
lost or eaten off the specimens by insects and the identity [[f typed over o]] of many of them lost. Most of them are still packed away here but in the absence of any locality labels, their usefullness is not what it otherwise might have been.
Yours very truly,
[[signature]] H. H. Brimley [[/signature]]
Curator.

Transcription Notes:
Note in pencil at top may be "Arrd" or "Ansd".