SKETCH OF PROFESSOR JAMES HALL. lai 



illustration of American official spread-eagleism. The incumbents of 

 the several departments of the survey wished to publish their works 

 in octavo, so that the results might appear in convenient form, and be- 

 come hand-books for students of science. The plan was overruled by 

 Governor Seward and his advisers, " who considered it due to the dig- 

 nity and importance of the State of New York that the volumes should 

 be published in quarto form, especially as they were to be presented 

 to other States and foreign governments as emblematic of the great- 

 ness of the State." The survey was reorganized between 1843 and 

 1844. A department of agi-iculture was arlded, and the paleontologi- 

 cal department — Mr. Conrad having resigned without making a re- 

 port — was assigned to Professor Hall, who began his work in 1844, 

 " almost without a collection of fossils of any kind, without a library 

 for reference, without artists, or any of the appliances or resources 

 considered necessary in scientific investigation. It became necessary 

 to create the department from the beginning." No appropriations of 

 money were made by the State for the collection of fossils till 1856, 

 when provision was made for eight years, and the whole burden of 

 labor and expense was till then thrown upon Professor Hall. He was 

 assisted in these arduous labors by his wdfe, who drew the figures of a 

 large number of the fossils. 



Five volumes of the " Paleontology " have been published, two of 

 which were divided into two parts, making seven bound volumes. As 

 analyzed by Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, the first volume, of 338 pages and 

 one hundred plates, contains descriptions of all the organic remains, 

 both of animals and plants, beginning with the lowest member of the 

 New York system and ascending to the Champlain division, which 

 terminates in the Hudson River group, corresponding to the Cambrian 

 of Sedgwick, or the Cambrian and Lower Silurian of Murchison. The 

 second volume, of 362 pages and more than a hundred plates, con- 

 tinues the system up to the base of the Onondaga or Salina formation. 

 The third volume, of 533 pages, with 128 plates, includes all the fossil 

 remains of the water-limes, the Lower Helderberg, and Oriskany divis- 

 ions, except the corals and bryozoa. The fourth volume includes the 

 brachiopoda of the Upper Helderberg, Hamilton, Portage, and Che- 

 mung divisions, which together constitute the Erian or Devonian. 

 The fifth volume contains the lamellibranchiates of the divisions just 

 named, together with a review of all the lamellibranchiate forms of the 

 lower formations. Two other volumes are to include the gasteropodse, 

 cephalopoda, crustacece, crinoide:c, bryozosB, and corals of the Erian. 

 Professor Hall has prepared, also, for the " Paleontology," a complete 

 revision of the brachiopods of North America, with about fifty plates, 

 in aid of which he has extended his researches to the Rocky Mountains, 

 tracing the great divisions of the New York series over the intervening 

 region ; and the identifications made by him have served as the basis 

 of all our knowledge of the geology of the Mississippi Basin. 



