PREFACE. xiii 



1850 to 1855 the work, except the printing and lithography, was carried on 

 entirely at the author's personal expense, and it was abandoned early in the latter 

 year.* Afterwards, in the same year, Hon. E. W. Leavenworth, Secretary of 

 State, undertook to ret*stablish the work upon a proper basis, and the author was 

 induced, by an appeal to his patriotism, to take it again in charge. To do this, 

 he declined a position which would have insured him security of place and a 

 life of quiet investigation in geological science. Under the new arrangement, 

 for the first time in the history of the work, means were provided for the 

 collection of fossils to illustrate the volumes still to be published. Because of 

 the.se collections the work was necessarily much extended, and Volume V, 

 originally planned as a single volume, including text and plates, has been 

 expanded to four volumes. Volumes VI and VII, and all subsequent work, 



* The following extract tvom ihe Preface nf Volume III will give a more clear idea of the then existing 

 conditions : 



" This department of the Geological Survey of the State was committed to my charge in 1843 ; Volume 

 I was completed and imblished in 1847 ; and Volume II, so far as legarded my own labors, was completed 

 in 1850, and (he work of the third volume was? at that time in progress. In the spiing of that year, legis- 

 lative enactment rtmoved the direction of this work from the Guveraor of the State, and placed it in the 

 hands of Ihe Secretary of State, who was ' authorized and directed to take charge of all matters appertain- 

 ing to the prosecution and publication of Ihe Geological Survey of the State ; ' and in Ihe third section of the 

 the same law, it was made 'the dut^ of the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Regents of the 

 University, to report to the next Legislature a plan for the final completion of the said survey, and to submit 

 the estimate of the cost of such completion.' 



" In the Re|H3i-t from this Commission to the Legislature a pi-oposition was made to pay the Paleontol- 

 ogist 'two thousand five hundred dollars' on the ' jiresentation of each successive volume, commencing 

 with the third, to the Secretary of State ;' which volume was to 'contain the manuscript letter-press ready 

 for printing, and be accompanied with the very fossils described.' 



" This * proposition ' was ' deemed a Just and liberal one,' and it seems to have been anticipated that the 

 work would go cm un ler such conditions. The sum of money hei-e proposed to be paid to defr-ay the entire 

 expense of collecting the fossils and the study and description of the same, together with the labor of super- 

 intending the drawings and engraving, was in fact entirely inadequate to pay for the collection of the fossils 

 necessary for a single volume, and left, Ijesides this, more than four yeara of labor to be performed by the 

 Paleontologist without any remuneration whatever. Under these circumstances the work could not go on, 

 and it became by this act virtually susjwnded in the early part of 1850. 



" Fri)m the commencement of the work, the expenses of making the collections had been borne by 

 myself. These collections, made up to that time, not only embraced most of those of the firat ami second 

 volumes, but the greater part of the third volume, as well as extensive collections in the higher rocks of the 

 New York series for the succeeding volumes. Besides these, I had made large collections of fossils in the 

 same series of strata in the west, for the purpose of compaiison with the New York species. In this way, 

 •a well as in examinations of the rock formations in situ, over a large part of the Western States, for the 

 purpose of determining the parallelism of the formations, I had already made gieat pecuniary sacrifices in 

 carrying on the work. Under these cireumstanccs, therefore, and with the new aspect presented by the 

 law of la.V), and the action of the Commission relative thereto, 1 coulil no longer demote myself to its prose- 

 cution, and consequently made other arrangements for the occupation of my time, which, however, left me 

 still some opi)ortunity to continue my investigations in this work. As the contracts between the State and 

 the engravers continued in force, the engraving, after 1851, was carried on somewhat slowly ; my frequent 

 and protracted absence rendering it iraiiossible for me to give that personal attention to it which a work of 

 this kind so fully demands. In order to prevent its entire cessation, I employed a person as an assistant 

 (who afterwards became my draughtsman) ; the lithographer volunteering to conti'iliute to pay a portion of 

 the expense of such assistant, that his own work iniglit not cease entirely. In this way the work was con- 

 tinued till 1855, no compensation whatever being paid to the author during this period." 



