74 Geological Survey of the State of Neio 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 estabhsh 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 land- 

 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 to the 

 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 ar- 

 rangement of the various cabinets of natural history, that will 

 greatly favor the just estimation of scientific labors in our coun- 

 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 



