824 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Up to the present time the entire publication of the Natural His- 

 tory of the State, exclusive of the Annual Reports of the Survey and 

 thirty-five Annual Reports of the State Museum, may be enumerated 

 as below : 



Botany, in two volumes bound in 2 volumes. 



Zoology " "5 " 



Mineralogy " "1 " 



Geology " "4 " 



Agriculture " "5 " 



Paleontology, five volumes " "7 " 



24 volumes. 



Of these twenty-four volumes, three thousand copies each have 

 been published, making the entire number of seventy-two thousand 

 quarto volumes, which have been published and distributed as the 

 result of the Geological Survey of the State. 



At the close of the field-work of the survey, the question of the 

 disposition of the collections which had been made became a subject 

 of much interest. It had been originally suggested that these might 

 occupy a room in the State Library, or be arranged in some of the 

 unused committee-rooms in the Capitol. The amount of material, 

 however, was so great, and the importance of its proper arrangement 

 so manifest, that the old State Hall, at that time about to be vacated, 

 was appropriated for the purpose of a State Museum. At a later 

 period (1857) the old building was demolished, and a more commodious 

 one erected en the same site ; and this is now filled to overflowing, 

 and a large amount of collections remain unprovided for. In nearly 

 all respects the survey has been carried out according to the original 

 conception and plan. It has resulted in far larger and more interest- 

 ing collections, and in far more interesting and valuable publications, 

 than could ever have been anticipated by its original promoters. It 

 has laid the foundations of geological science in our country, and 

 made the State of New York the classic ground for the study of palae- 

 ozoic geology. 



The cost of the survey being computed in dollars, the value of 

 the results is sometimes estimated by a similar standard ; but the peo- 



Great delay occurred in the completion of the plates of volume three after the text had 

 been printed. The fourth volume was greatly delayed, both in the printing of the text 

 and the lithography of the plates, owing to the enhanced price of all materials and labor 

 during the war ; and for the same reason very little progress was made with the fifth 

 volume until a modification of the printing contract was made in 1871, which enabled 

 the printer to go on with the work. Fully four years were lost on this account. The 

 manuscript for volume five was, according to contract, deposited in the State Library in 

 1866, but after these years of delay it became necessary to revise and expand the same 

 to include new material, which had been obtained and investigated during this interval. 

 In the end, therefore, it became necessary to make two parts of this volume, one of 

 which has already been published, and the other has been for three years ready for 

 printing. 



