Vlll 



PREFACE. 



below the Trenton limestone, intending to extend the work of collecting to all 

 the know n localities of primordial fossils within, and adjacent to the State. The 

 lit of the first season's work proved so unsatisfactory and disappointing that 

 this plan was abandoned with regret, and nothing farther was attempted in 

 that direction. 



From the tune of the completion of Volume V, part ii, at the close of 1879, 

 the failure to make appropriations for the publication of this work, left in the 

 hands of the State Geologist a large amount of matter prepared, or partially 

 ready for publication. Of this material were eighty plates of Lamellibranchiata, 

 which, with twelve additional plates, now constitute the illustrations of Volume 

 V, part i. published in two volumes. A considerable number of the plates pub- 

 lished in Volume VI had, at that time, already been lithographed ; besides eight 

 plates of Crustacea for Volume VII. Of the Brachiopoda, which in the present 

 arrangement are to constitute Volume VIII, twenty-seven plates had been 

 lithographed when, in 1881, all progress in the Pal.eontology of New York 

 was suspended. 



rpon resuming the work, under the limitations of the law of 1883, it 



came necessary for the author to content himself with a volume restricted to 

 thr description and illustration of the Devonian Crustacea, and in order to 

 make this one of a size approximating the other volumes, it became necessary 

 to include the supplementary material of Volume V, part ii, originally intended 

 for a separate publication, and which here follows the principal matter giving 

 title to the volume. 



Under existing circumstances, it is not at all probable that the author will 

 ever have the opportunity of reviewing and revising his earlier work upon the 

 Trilobitic faunas of the older rocks, but he may hope that in the near future 

 the scientific institutions of New York may feel it incumbent upon them to 

 present to the public a work upon these fossils worthy of the subject and of 

 the State whose position is so well established as the pioneer and munificent 

 patron in the science of Paleontology. There is no longer any difficulty in 

 finding willing and able hands to perform such a work, and the material, though 

 scattered in the collections of different institutions, could readily be brought 



