REPORT OF THE STATE GEOLOGIST. 



To the Honorable the Board of Regents of the University of the State 

 of New York : 



Under the provisions of chapter 355 of the Laws of 1883, it is provided 

 that the State Geologist shall communicate to the Board of Regents the 

 results of his scientific researches, in lieu of the annual reports previously 

 required by law. 



In presenting for the first time a report of the State Geologist to the 

 Regents of the University, I beg leave to state some facts which may 

 not be familiar to every member of the Board. 



When the preparation of the Palaeontology of the State was commit- 

 ted to my charge as State Geologist, no annual reports were required, 

 as I have elsewhere stated, and this I believe to have been unfortunate, 

 since the long intervals between the publication of the quarto volumes 

 left the public uninformed of the progress of the work, except as inci- 

 dentally shown in the publications of the State Museum. Finally in 

 1 88 1, the Legislature incorporated in the general appropriation bill a 

 clause making it " the duty of the State Geologist to communicate to 

 the Legislature, on or before the first day of March of each and every 

 year, a report upon the condition of any work for the State upon which 

 he may be engaged." In accordance with this requirement, three reports 

 have been submitted to the Legislature. Copies of these reports are 

 herewith communicated, and from their contents and the present report, 

 it will be seen what has been already accomplished, and what is the 

 present condition of the work which has been committed to the State 

 Geologist. 



The report made to the Legislature in 1882 presents a general state- 

 ment of the nature of the work, with an enumeration of the volumes 

 published up to that time, and the condition of the work then in pro- 

 gress. In order to give some definite idea regarding the work which 

 at that time occupied the State Geologist, the report was accompanied 

 by a synopsis of the fossil Lamellibranchiate shells, with illustrations, 

 in twelve plates, giving the principal genera known in the upper members 

 of the New York Geological series. As therein stated, eighty plates of 

 this class of fossils had already been lithographed and printed many 

 years before, but no provision existed for publication. Since that time, 

 a law has been passed for the completion of the work, and a volume 

 embracing descriptions and illustrations of less than one-half the known 

 species of that class of fossils, in the rocks mentioned, has been finished. 

 The printing of the remaining portion, Part II, of the Lamellibranchiata 

 has been delayed, in the first place by my own illness, and since October, 

 by the necessity of preparing material to illustrate the mineral resources 

 of the State of New York in the New Orleans Exposition. This portion 

 of the work will however soon be in the hands of the printer. 



In the report made to the Legislature in 1883, I have given a resume 

 of the condition of the work done and in progress. In order to present 



