STATEMENT AND PROPOSAL OF MR. GEBHAED. 



TO THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF 

 THE STATE OF NEW-YORK, 



HAVING IN CHARGE THE STATE CABINET OP NATURAL HISTORY. 

 GrENTLEMEN : 



The Legislature, at its last session, appropriated one thousand 

 dollars " to the Regents of the University, for the increase of the 

 State Cabinet ; " and which was to be expended (as it was under- 

 stood by the committee which recommended the appropriation) 

 in the purchase of the fossils of this State, which were not in the 

 State Collection. 



Having devoted the leisure hours of some twenty years in col- 

 lecting the fossils of the Helderberg series of rocks, and feeling 

 quite confident that my cabinet contains a greater number of 

 species of fossils from that series than all the cabinets in the State 

 combined, I offer it for sale to the State of New- York. 



In addition to the Helderberg series, it also contains many rare 

 and valuable fossils from the lower rocks, several of which have 

 been figured in Mr. Hall's volumes on Palaeontology : there are 

 also sixty or seventy tertiary fossils from Monte Bolca in Italy, 

 and a series of the fossils of the Dudley Rock in England. 



Of the number of different species of New- York fossils in the 

 Cabinet, it is impossible at present to speak with entire accuracy. 

 SufB.ce it to say, that as far only as the palaeontology has pro- 

 gressed, Mr. Hall has already figured two hundred and twenty 

 of the specimens ; and that there is a sufiicient number of fossils 



[Senate No. 16.] 2 



