State Museum op Natural History. 9 



during the past year, and now that the field labor is nearly completed 

 it is a misfortune not to be able to present the results to the public. 



During the years 1879 and 1880, special communications were made 

 to the Regents regarding an important collection of fossils, chiefly of the 

 Trenton limestone, belonging to Mr. 0. D. Walcott, of Trenton 

 Falls. In 1879, the committee on the State Museum recommended 

 the purchase of the collection, and the Legislature made the necessary 

 appropriation ($4,000) for that purpose. This appropriation was vetoed 

 by the Governor, and the collection remained in the hands of the 

 owner. In '1880 the subject was again brought before the Board of 

 Regents, who appointed a special committee to examine the collection 

 and report. The committee made their examination and recommended 

 the purchase, and the Legislature again appropriated the required 

 sum. The appropriation was a second time vetoed, by the Governor ; 

 and the collection was sold elsewhere and lost to the State Museum 

 for ever. It is not my business to discuss the subject in this 

 place ; but it is necessary to record the facts, in order that the Museum 

 and its Trustees maybe vindicated in the future, as having discharged 

 their duties to the institution and to the sciences which it represents. 



With the limited means at our disposal, it is not possible to obtain, 

 by collecting in the field all that is necessary for such a Museum. More- 

 over, persons, either scientists or collectors, living upon certain prolific 

 localities will be able to give a greater amount of time, and to accumu- 

 late much larger and more complete series of specimens than any person 

 not thus situated ; and no institution of limited means can ever keep its 

 collections up to the standard required by the progress of science 

 without purchasing local collections. It is moreover almost always true 

 that such can be purchased at a less cost than they could be made by 

 a special collector. It should be remembered that the only mode by 

 which we can ever hope to work out the details of our Geology, and to 

 obtain even a moderately complete exhibition of the fossil contents 

 of the strata, will be through the local observers and collectors ; and 

 the least recognition which the state can give for such services, is the 

 purchase of these collections where their value is attested by proper 

 authority. The evidences of the value of the collection here re- 

 ferred to are on record in communications made by the director as 

 well as in published memoirs to the Board of Regents, and to the com- 

 mittee on the State Museum of Natural History. Were any farther 

 evidence required we have it in the fact that the collection, "on its re- 

 fusal by New York, was immediately purchased by the first scientific 

 Museum in the country. 



With my last report I presented an outline map, giving the position of 

 certain ore-beds in Essex county, and their relation to the rock forma- 

 tions. This was preliminary to a systematic development and ex- 

 hibition of the relations of the mineral products of the State to 

 the Geological formations. I regret that this object could not have 

 received some encouragement from the Board, since it is only a part of 

 the plan of the Museum, recommended by a committee of the Regents 

 in 1866. 

 In this connection I would beg leave to call the attention of the 

 [Assem. Doc. No. 127.] 2 



