State Museum of Natural History. 7 



carried on as usual and with success and satisfaction. This department 

 of work has become a necessity for the Museum, and we have found it 

 constantly applicable and constantly required, both in the study and 

 illustration of fossils and in that of recent objects of natural history. 

 The Museum now possesses a very extensive series of translucent sec- 

 tions of fossil corals, bryozoans and sponges, numbering about 

 1,700; while of the larger specimens which have been cut and polished 

 for study, where no translucent sections were required, and of those 

 which have been cut and shaped for the Museum collections, we 

 have more than one thousand examples. The entire number of cuttings 

 including fossils and shells are more than three thousand specimens. 



Duplicate Collections of Fossils and Minerals. 



During the year collections of duplicate fossils and minerals have 

 been sent to the following institutions, viz. : Westfield Academy, Chau- 

 tauqua county ; Albion Academy and Union School, Orleans county ; 

 Schoharie Academy, at Schoharie C. H. ; Norwich Academy, Che- 

 nango county. Three other collections still remain subject to the 

 order of the Board of Eegents. 



A detailed statement of the collections f sent to colleges and acade- 

 mies as ordered by special acts of the Legislature, or directed by the 

 Board of Regents, and of those distributed from the collections of the 

 Museum, or contributed by the Director from his private collections 

 from 1866 to 1880, will be found in appendix A. 



Collections in the Field and Additions io the Museum Col- 

 lections. 



The only collections of importance made in the field during the cur- 

 rent year are from the Trenton limestone. Dr. J. W. Hall, assisted by 

 Martin Sheehy, made a collection of thirty-six boxes of specimens of 

 fossils from the exposures of the limestone in the ravines along the 

 valley of West Canada creek. 



Mr. Sherwood has sent in several boxes of specimens of Catskill 

 sandstone and Chemung fossils collected in the Catskill region during 

 the summer. Mr. C. E. Beecher has made a collection of more than 

 thirty species of fossils, from the shales of the Hudson river group, at 

 an exposure within the limits of the city of Albany. 



The largest addition to .the Museum collections has come from the 

 arrangement of the Cephalopoda which have been used by the Director 

 for study and illustration in the Palaeontology of the State. A con- 

 siderable number of these were in the former collections of the Museum, 

 but by far the larger number are from more recent collection or addi- 

 tions from other sources. A classified catalogue of these is given in 

 Appendix B. 



The total number of specimens thus added to the arranged collec- 

 tions is 821 ; of these 124 belong to the old arrangement, having been 

 borrowed for study and are now returned — being thus indicated in the 

 catalogue. The number of specimens new to the collections, as shown in 

 the same catalogue, are 697. Of the whole number (821) 268 are arranged 

 under glass and the remainder (553) are consigned to the drawers. 



There are at the present time in the Museum several hundred 



