8 Twenty-fifth Report on the State Museum. 



Hon. Erastus Corning, in the expectation that the Legislature would 

 refund the same by an appropriation at the session of 1871. For 

 some reason this was not done, and it becomes necessary to mate 

 another application to the Legislature for that object. . 



Collections made by the Assistants of the Museum. 



The collections made in the Botanical Department are extensive 

 and valuable. Mr. Peck will make a special report upon these, and 

 I need not enumerate them in this place. 



The collections in Geology and Palaeontology have been qnite^ 

 extensive during the year. 



Mr. Andrew Sherwood, who has been engaged ui»der my direction 

 in tracing the limits of the Catskill group, and in collecting fossils 

 from those rocks and from the Chemung group, has sent in seven 

 boxes, principally of fossils, with some rock specimens. 



Mr. Herbert H. Smith, employed as a collector, has sent in twenty 

 boxes of fossils from the Hamilton group, collected along the shores 

 of Cayuga Lake. 



Mr. Geo. B. Simpson has been temporarily employed as field 

 assistant, and has made extensive collections in the Hamilton group 

 at Earlville, in Madison county, and at Pratt's Falls, Pompey Hill 

 and Delphi, in Onondaga county. More especial attention has been 

 given to collecting the Lamellibranchiate shells which occur in these 

 localities. 



Field Investigations. 



I have heretofore communicated the results of some field investi- 

 gations in the southern part of the State, having for their object the 

 better determination of the limits of certain formations in that region. 



These observations have been made by myself in the intervals of 

 other work, or by persons temporarily employed by me ; from the 

 limited time devoted to the examination, it has been impossible to 

 present the results in such a form as I could wish. 



The extent and even the existence of the Catskill red sandstone 

 within the limits of the State, is a subject which has heretofore been 

 discussed and questioned on very meager observations ; and to reassert 

 what had before been stated by the ISTew York geologists, was adding 

 nothing to our knowledge on the subject. As I have before stated, 

 we found red rocks within the limits of the Chemung, and even as 

 low as what a'ppears to be the horizon of the Portage group ; but 



