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vVll this preliiiiiiiary work, so exceedingly important to 

 the Geokigical Commission, has cost nothing to govern- 

 ment. Instead of being forced to send collections to 

 foreign scientific men for study, the Geological Commis- 

 sion has been able, in its own laboratories and with its 

 own resources, to prepare for publication a very consid- 

 erable part of its results, though this work has naturally 

 progressed much more slowly than it would have done 

 under superior advantages. My great desire has been to 

 lay a firm foundation for Brazilian geology in the devel- 

 opment of pal^ontological localities and the accurate 

 determination of characteristic formations by means of 

 fossils, and to this end the Commission has labored with a 

 degree of success surprising even to m3'self, and we find 

 ourselves to-day with an euibarras de ricJiesses. The 

 Commission as at present constituted comprises only six 

 persons, on whom has fallen all this work of collecting, 

 arranging, and studying this material, which in richness 

 is to be compared with that of the * Thayer,' or ' Hassler,' 

 or 'Challenger' expeditions; and it is not reasonable to 

 expect that, without the free access to scientific libraries, 

 and to collections for comparison, the work of the Bra- 

 zilian Commission should go on more rapidly than that 

 of the foreign commissions where the material is divided 

 up among dozens of specialists, and where the scientific 

 man enjoys every advantage. As it is, it will be several 

 years before the full results of these commissions are 

 prepared for publication. For six persons to unpack, 

 assort, prepare, and describe the immense collections 

 made by the Geological Commission in less than one 

 year, was an absolute impossibility, as every scientific 

 man will agree with me, and in the six months generously 

 granted me after the suppression of the Commission by 

 the Camaras, 1 had only the hope of saving as large a 

 fragment as possible of our results. It is needless to say 

 that it has been entirely out of our power to finish the 

 work, notwithstanding that the members of the Commis- 

 sion have worked unceasingly day and night on their 

 herculean task. Neither is the discussion of the material 



