Bibliography. 211 



qualifications, who, from causes unknown to us, long since withdrew 

 from the undertaking. Mr. James Hall, the geologist of the fourth 

 district, and favorably known at home and abroad for his geolo- 

 gical acquirements, particularly in the department of the paleontology 

 of the older rocks, was in May, 1843, appointed to fill the place of 

 paleontologist to the State. He has found it necessary to commence 

 the work anew, and has spent two seasons in revisiting all the localities, 

 particularly in the southern sections of the State. Many new and im- 

 portant facts have been discovered in the course of these researches, 

 and still no doubt much more remains to be done. Already about fifty 

 plates of fossils have been engraved, and these will, it is believed, be 

 ready by July next, with the volume of text which is to accompany 

 them. 



This will however be only about half the amount of matter which 

 will finally be required to do justice to the subject. At least one thou- 

 sand species of fossils are already known within the State, and to figure 

 and describe all these, to compare and collate them, not only with each 

 other but with the most recent and authentic foreign authorities, and to 

 avoid the unpleasant accident of describing anew what is before known, 

 is a work which will require much time and great labor — time and labor 

 which any person in the least acquainted with paleontology can appre- 

 ciate. The fear is, that an impatience, both on the part of the public 

 and of the state authorities, to see the end of an already protracted sur- 

 vey, will mar the completeness of the result. 



As much as we desire to possess the final volumes of Mr. Hall on 

 the paleontology of New York, we should prefer to wait five years 

 more for them, than to have them hurried through the press before the 

 author was satisfied that he had done the best in his power. Who re- 

 grets that seven laborious years were spent on the " Silurian system" 

 before its author ventured to put it forth — and who is disposed to quar- 

 rel with Mr. De la Beche, that his elaborately minute maps of the En- 

 glish counties, and the corresponding text, proceed at so slow a pace ? 

 Nothing valuable to science can be accomplished without great labor, 

 and we trust that both ample time and means will be granted and taken, 

 to complete the survey of New York. She has already done much 

 and well in the cause of science ; and we are sure will not permit the 

 full value of former labors to be lost or impaired by an untimely re- 

 striction of her previous liberal policy. 



11. United Stales Exploring Expedition. — The Narrative of this 

 Expedition during the years 1838, '39, '40, '41, and '42, by Capt. Chas. 

 Wilkes, U. S. N., Commander of the expedition, is just about to be pub- 

 lished by Lea & Blanchard, in five large imperial octavo volumes with 



