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Geological Survey of the State of New York. ‘ 
of the work, and to convey as early as possible, hints of valuable 
resources, that the people may avail themselves of them before 
the completion of the survey ; but the-digest of all the facts, and 
the scientific reasoning and deductions based on them, will form 
the crown of the labors of the geologists, to which, no doubt, 
they may look forward with satisfaction. As to time; this survey 
was projected» upon the scale of four years, to the astonishment 
of many sensible individuals, who supposed a geologist would 
only have to establish himself, for a few days, in a comfortable 
hotel near the center of a county, and the inhabitants, having 
received notice some time previous of his sojourn there at a given 
time, would all come in, bringing their tribute of rocks, minerals 
and soils, and the work for a county would thus be completed in 
a very short time, and for a small expense, very much as a Jand- 
lord would do with his tenants on quarter day. The estimated 
expense of the undertaking was as little understood as the time re- 
quired, and both mistakes arose manifestly from entire ignorance 
or misconception of the nature and objects of the work. We may 
point such persons to the “Silurian System,” by Murchison, a 
work that occupied him some seven or eight years, aided by the 
suggestions and observations of many distinguished men, in the 
survey of a region far less in extent (although its geology is more 
complicated) than the State of New York; and we may refer 
such individuals to Buckland’s Bridgewater Treatise, upon the 
plates of which alone we understand the author expended’ the 
whole £1000 he received from the founder. of that series of works. 
The present report is the last of the four annual ones, and the 
attention of the geologists will now be, of course, directed tothe 
preparation of the final report. Here there is an opportunity for 
the State to display a just liberality in the execution of the 
“maps, geological sections and diagrams,” in the illustrations 
of zoology, conchology, botany, &c.; and in the convenient at 
rangement of the various cabinets of natural history, that will 
greatly favor the just estimation of scientific labors in our cout 
try ; and we expect from these State collections, that are already 
formed, and will be made, a considerable influence in favor of the 
study of natural science. $ 
Dr. De Kay’s report consists of a “Catalogue of the Animals 
belonging to the State of New York, as far as they have been 
figured and described,” and a “Report” on the geographical posi- 
tion of the State, which is included. between the ocean and the 
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