Thank you for your words on cotton string and rubber, Jan.

Michael and Rose Neuffer (Houston, Texas) visited here a couple of days
ago. Rose tentatively identified the Survey Collection's "golden string",
70+ years old and still in good condition, as embroidery thread, probably
made of silk. Does anyone else have comments on how long silk lasts?

A few words on containers, such as shell vials, gelatin capsules, small
boxes, and chipboard trays:

Fossil shells kept in shell vials (cylindrical glass tubes with one open
end) are dust-free and in good condition in this collection, even after
more than 70 years. Moreover, one can be relatively sure that the shells
have not jumped from one container to another, though there is always human
error to contend with. The vials are stopped with a small wad of cotton.
After all these years, the cotton is generally somewhat yellowed, as is the
paper label within the vial. In many cases, only the end of the cotton that
is exposed to the air is yellowed. The vial glass is correspondingly
fogged. Judging from their respective yellowing, I suspect that the paper
has generated more acid than the cotton over the years.

I wonder whether it would now be better to exchange old glass, paper, and
cotton for new materials. Does the old cotton continue to deteriorate, or
is it now relatively stable?

Gelatin capsules, such as those used for pills, have also lasted more than
70 years without apparent harm to tiny shells. They are currently a fairly
dark translucent yellow, though they may have been colorless and
transparent when new. Empty capsules can sometimes be obtained from
pharmacists.

Older curators thriftily reused small boxes of many kinds in the
collection. Cigar boxes partly filled with cotton were once popular for
collecting fossil shells, as used by Winnie McGlamery and Lyman Toulmin,
and they really are the perfect size, shape, and weight for this task.
These are low, rectangular boxes made of wood or smoothly finished
cardboard, with a hinged lid. Old pillboxes were low cylinders with a
tightly fitting lid like a diatom; they were made of wood shavings or thick
paper, and were used to seat small, delicate shells in cotton. Various
small metal containers were also employed; they are relatively airtight but
tend to rust in this climate. All of these containers worked rather well to
protect their contents, though the shells inside are usually hidden. An
exception is a kind of pillbox with a transparent lid.

Most of the large shells are held in chipboard trays. The older trays are
brown and somewhat deteriorated; I do not know their manufacturer. Although
these specimens were kept in metal cabinets for decades, the older cabinets
are not dustproof, and their contents were coated with a fine film of coal
dust. Coal was used to heat the building that housed the collection for
about 50 years. A janitor periodically dusted the specimens, but the paper
labels underneath them show the effects of the long fallout of coal dust.
Some shells show slight signs of deterioration, others do not. On the
whole, it seems as though the quality of the paper used next to the shell
(the worst being the occasional sheet of newspaper used "temporarily" but
sometimes not removed since the 30's) is more important than any other
factor in preserving the shell for a long time.

Andrew K. Rindsberg
Curator, Paleontological Collection
Geological Survey of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA