24 Forty-first Annual Report on the 



as one selected witli great care from an abundant supply of 

 material, and earnestly recommend tliat it should be preserved in 

 the Museum collections in order to meet tlie requirements of the 

 original plan of arrangement should that ever be carried into effect. 



In the south-east corner basement room of the State Hall, water 

 and steam connections have been made and the room is now avail- 

 able as a laboratory and storage room. The majority of the 

 mineral duplicates are here arranged in drawers. 



A large rock dresser, the invention of Mr. Spang, of Pittsburgh^ 

 has been added to the machinery and apparatus in the department 

 of sections and rock cutting. With this instrument large and 

 irregular masses of rock can be reduced in a few minutes to a 

 suitable form and dimensions, thus saving the slow and laborious 

 work of sawing the specimens into the proper shape. In cases of 

 fragile specimens or where translucent sections are required the 

 machinery in previous use is employed with success as heretofore. 



Since the introduction of steam-heat and an elevator engine into 

 the basement of the State Hall, we have been able to connect the 

 small engine belonging to the State Museum to the elevator boiler 

 and are saved the expense and labor of maintaining a separate 

 steam generator. 



The preparation of the Museum Bulletins upon the Dictyospon- 

 gidfe and the Palaeozoic Lamellibranchiata has not progressed since 

 my last report. 



In 1885 the Committee on the State Museum decided to post- 

 pone the work of lithographing for these Bulletins, and no action, 

 so far as I am aware, has since been taken. The lithographing of 

 the plates already prepared for the Bulletin on the Dictyospongidse 

 will occupy a single artist for fully one year, and it is very desirable 

 that this work be completed before the commencement of printing 

 the letter-press. Since the preliminary descriptions were printed I 

 have added some new material, and it has become more than ever 

 desirable to review the original localities of these fossils, and to 

 examine some others of more recent discovery before completing 

 the work. 



In order to make this work approximately complete, it will require 

 the services of one person in the field for an entire season. It would 

 be a misfortune to be compelled to publish, at this time, a work 

 which would be only an expression of the knowledge possessed by 

 us in 1882. 



