Reply to a ''Note on a Question of Priority:' 249 



United States soon after publication. Copies were sent to the Geo- 

 logical Society of London, to Mr. Davidson, Mr. A. 0. Ramsay, M. 

 Barrande, Dr. Lindstrora, Dr. Geinitz, Prof. DeKoninek, Dr. F. 

 Roemer, Edward Desor, Dr. A. von Volbortli, and the Imperial Society 

 of Naturalists of Moscow. These, with one exception, were sent in 

 packages with other publications, through the Smithsonian Institution, 

 and are marked in my list as having been forwarded from Albany on 

 the Tth of April, 1871. The pamphlet is noticed in the Jahrhuch for 



1871, page 989. 



On the 7th of April, 1871, the printing establishment of Weed, 

 Parsons & Co. was destroyed by fire, together with the twenty-third 

 Report on the State Cabinet (printed to nearly two hundred pages), 

 the lithographic stones, and every thing else pertaining to that work. 

 In the confusion which followed, and with the necessity on the part of 

 the State printer to furnish certain documents as soon as possible, no 

 attention was given to the State Cabinet Report for several months. 

 Had there existed in my mind the least doubt about publication, I 

 should naturally have procured an additional number of copies ; for this 

 work could easily have been done at any printing office. It has usually 

 been my practice to distribute at least one hundred copies of publica- 

 tions made in advance of the regular reports ; and this would have 

 been done in the present instance within a month after the first publi- 

 cation, together with the plate of figures and descriptions, but for the 

 disastrous fire referred to. 



These are the facts of the case; the scientific public will decide the 

 question of publication.* And here I might close : but there are a few 

 points in Mr. Billings' article which require my attention. 



From the tenor of Mr. Billings' statements in this Journal, and espe- 

 cially in the Naturalist, any reader would suppose that I had borrowed 

 specimens of the Canadian^ Geological Survey on which to found my 

 descriptions or conclusions concerning the genera there published as 

 Rhynobolus and Dinobolus, and then endeavored to keep him in igno- 

 rance of what I had done. This would certainly have been an absurd- 

 ity, and, moreover, it is not true. The only specimens borrowed of 

 the Survey, having the remotest relation to Rhynoboltts, were of 

 Trimerella. I wished to compare authentic specimens of the latter 

 with DmoBOLUS, which, under the name of Oholus Conradi, had been 

 stated by Mr. Dall to be a true Trimerella. The idea of designedly 

 keeping Mr. Billings in ignorance of what I had done would have 

 been simply silly and purposeless. 



* If the fact of being on sale with booksellers is necessary for publication, the ques- 

 tion could certainly be raised regarding all the State Cabinet Reports ; for the State 

 of New York has never authorized their sale. 



[Assem. No. 133.] 32 



